Hitch Hikers Guide To The Avatar Realm
by Eduard Tubin
Summary: I decided to join the adventure. This is an old story I wrote a while ago. I can't afford a real vacation to Italy so I decided on the Avatar realm. I became a stooge for Azula and then joined the rebels with Zuko. I do not portray a hero in any way.
1. Chapter 1

**The Tourists Guide to the Realm of the Avatar**

**(The Voyage of Eduard)**

**Chapter 1**

Eduard had floated out in the cold northern currents of the Mid Atlantic for a week in a scarlet red_ Fiat 500_ he had rented from the fine folks at _Budget Rent A Car_ at the Reykjavik Airport. He had decided to visit Iceland as a part of his grand tour of Europe. He lived in Europe as the son of French music teacher (his father) and and ex patriot Estonian artist (his mother). His grand tour had consisted of seeing the bits of Europe he had not been dragged to see by parents interested in providing him with a well rounded education and that meant a romp through Iceland to see the savage volcanic landscapes and snowmobile on glaciers followed by a romp through Scandinavia.

No one had told him traveling alone through a volcanic country in spring in a small Italian designed compact car would prove dangerous until a mudslide set off by a small volcano washed his car out to see. The _Fiat _tumbled off the sole main highway that ran around the whole island, down a steep rocky embankment and landed in the ocean. The airbags detonated as Eduard hit the ocean and then the strong currents washed him out to sea.

He had spent a week bobbing up and down with the waves hoping some passing ship would pick him up and give him something other than Icelandic shark jerky to eat and a few pints of bottled water and Gatorade to drink. He had rehearsed the speech he would give when interviewed by the news media and he even threw in a special thanks for the British Navy in case they found him.

He had nearly run out of shark jerky which came as a relief. He decided to sleep since the salt water had taken out the electronics that made the radio and lights operate and the sky had begun to grow dark which usually meant night had begun to fall. In the North Atlantic that was not a given, however since the sky was always dark. Eduard had spent a week with nothing but rain and gray, dull, cloud overhead.

Eduard ate the last bit of shark jerky which had always tasted off. He had to try to fall asleep with the taste of jerked shark in his mouth which proved a more difficult task than he imagined. He wished for toothpaste and a toothbrush and understood why sharks ate people but it didn't work the other way around. He began to understand that just because one could eat another living thing without ill effect; it didn't mean one always should do so. It also explained that Iceland would not have a thriving shark export business.

Eduard woke up to find his Fiat life raft filling with water. He had seen Titanic in the theater as a kid and understood what his car had begun to do only without the help of the iceberg. He had left the window open so he could urinate out of it when the urge hit and he noticed he had arrived at some soret of large land mass covered in some kind of pine forest. If here were lucky, he would find himself dazed and confused in Norway or Scotland. If he were unlucky, he would find himself dazed and confused in Russia. He took a deep breath and jumped out the cold water stung when he struck it. He could never swim well on any account and all his muscles set like concrete and turned to knots that refused to obey his brain so he had to hope the current would carry him to shore. His car maid a vile hissing sound as the trunk sank below the surface.

"I'm totally screwed!" Eduard said in a pleasant European accented English. His father used French which his mother partly understood and his mother used Estonian which no one understood so Eduard ended up speaking English as a middling compromise.

Four men in a small metal patrol boat pulled up to him and tossed out a red life ring. Eduard didn't recognize the men as uniformed NATO troops or Norwegians and the flag fluttering in the gray sky was not Russian. It had a rather odd flame symbol on it and the soldiers wore a uniform of red and black. Eduard was cold and exhausted and in his state he assumed that oil rig workers had plucked him out of the North Sea. He passed out from exhaustion hoping that the workers worked for the huge Norwegian oil company Statoil since he had shares in that company

* * *

><p>Azula stood over Eduard with her arms crossed. "I thought you'd be taking part in my father's meeting and I come here to find you packing." Azula tapped her fingers waiting for her answer.<p>

Eduard folded a pair of red boxers. "I'll be coming with you and your brother to Ember Island."

"My father didn't request your presence at the meetings this weekend?"

"Fire Lord Ozai has never even spoken to me." Eduard said as he packed his clothing neatly into his knapsack. "He has no interest in listening to my practical difficulties as Minister of Production and doesn't trust me because I'm not Fire Nation. He can meet with his generals and when I return, I will find a stack of paper the height of you stacked on my desk asking for all kinds of outrageous things that the military thinks it needs."

Azula had suspected as much since her father regarded Eduard as a foreigner and doubted his true loyalties. At first, Azula had Eduard tossed into prison for a month and she kept him uninformed but comfortable and found his intellect sharp and his odd background compelling. "So you'll be coming with us to Ember Island?"

Karo folded a set of red pants neatly. He wore the uniform of a Fire Nation dignitary with a gold trimmed black vest. Azula had noted his neat and fussy nature which he reflected in his neat dress habits and flawless uniform. "The Fire Lord still regards me as an untrustworthy foreigner so I took this as a chance to leave the palace and look into buying a summer home so I can have an escape from this place."

"What makes you think I'll let you out of my sight?" Azula said.

Eduard thought for a moment, "and you want me around the palace _all_ of the time?" Eduard knew he didn't have the same trust as Fire Nation nobles and so he knew Azula could raise her objections to his plans to buy a summer house. He had not forgotten he lived under a dictatorship run under the oppressive fists of the Fire Lord but he had grown accustomed to such things and knew how to live within the limitations of his freedoms. He had no choice and since he knew little of the nature of his fate, he chose to adapt rather than fight his confinement. "I have no doubt you have ways of keeping tabs on me so I don't fall out of line. You have more reason to fear your brother Zuko's loyalty than mine."

Azula considered Eduard of great practical value but a person endowed with annoying habits. He whistled complex tunes that never followed a pattern, spoke in a dirty sounding accent and had no fear of her. She had found him a year and a half ago as a half starving, very gaunt, short Eduard a troop of Fire Nation soldiers had plucked out of the ocean just off the coast of the Northern Earth Kingdom. At first the soldiers took him into custody and held him prisoner but Azula saw a use for the odd, short strawberry blonde young man. Her father had banished her brother and she needed someone loyal to work in the palace. Eduard fit her needs nicely since he knew nothing at all about this world and she could manipulate him to suite her needs. She needed such an ally: Zuko had been banished, Azula shared the Fire Lord's great ambitions and Eduard could be shaped to fit her needs despite his flaws. He still spoke the Fire Lord's Chinese with a nearly unforgivable accent, looked far to foreign to trust and spoke with a detached formality.

Eduard had no choice in this: he didn't speak the language at first but in prison he understood the Princess held all of the keys to his life. He adapted as he needed to and worked to learn the language and culture through the distorted prism of the Fire Nation's propaganda. He disliked the arrangement and never could figure out how he had stumbled into his misfortune but he did what he had to in order to survive. He had not yet figured out if he had died that day in the North Tlantic when his car sank and this was his version of purgatory or if he had survived and stumbled upon some kind of strange _Lost World_. He preferred the idea of a _Lost World_ since he didn't want to credit two thousand years of Christian tradition with being correct about purgatory.

By the standards of a person who had ridden on high speed rail and taken fast ferries; the large pink seal like creatures – some kind of sea mammal – went at a pace between dead slow and stop. Eduard passed the time sitting alone, whistling and drawing with a pencil in his sketch book. Zuko sat next to Eduard and tried to engage him in conversation. Zuko didn't dislike Eduard and Eduard didn't have the animosity that Azula had to her brother but they had little in common. Zuko reminded Eduard of the grumpy old men in the coffee shops of his homeland that griped endlessly about the state of the world, aches and pains and other matters for the sake of making conversation. Zuko didn't dislike Eduard and envied the short man's ability to keep an upbeat attitude in the face of life.

Eduard saw Zuko sit next to him on a large bench. At first Zuko said nothing but then as Eduard began to blow eraser crumbs off the paper, he decided to open up. "I thought _you_ of all people would understand that we're being brushed off."

Uh – huh?" Eduard said in his stand offish manner but stopped drawing to show he would pay attention. "What course of action do you suggest we take? Your father wants to meet with his senior generals to prepare a plan for the rumored invasion planned for _The Day of Black Sun_. I don't count as one of the important people because I'm not Fire Nation. Don't you think it's a bit ambitious for an upstart prince to have delusions of his importance? You have only recently fallen back into favor with your father and I never had that favor: I'm an _accountant_."

Zuko had expected this kind of answer as Eduard didn't understand the importance of status and honor as Prince Zuko did. "Didn't you ever hope to earn respect in the eyes of _your_ father?"

Eduard pondered this for a moment. "My father was an elementary school teacher so he didn't make the kinds of demands on me that your father did." Eduard could see the pale blue green outline of Ember Island on the horizon and the shape of the large cone that formed the volcano at its center. "I had to learn the piano and get good grades in school. Music wasn't my thing so I guess he had to live with my grades which were passable."

Zuko could see one of those odd cartoons taking shape on Eduard's drawing pad. Zuko lacked Eduard's delicate sense of humor or his desire to poke fun at the serious issues in life but Eduard showed some technical merit combined with a sense of satire. "I don't know if you should draw the Fire Nation generals with such disrespect."

"I have an eraser – see?" Eduard held up the rubber tip of his pencil then erased his drawing. "Even if I have to obey the orders of these people and do my duty; it doesn't mean I have to fear them. You have a far more difficult position since _you're _the Prince of the Fire Nation."

Zuko knew Azula had to have some means of keeping her freethinker under control but doubted that she had seduced him. He suspected Eduard had some kind of medical condition as he had the look of someone who had frail health in childhood so perhaps Azula held control over him through his medication.

Eduard put his drawing pad on the seat next to him and hands behind his head. "You have the power and position so your actions get noticed. I survive by not having either: I hold a position most think is uninteresting and I have a middling amount of influence and power so there you go."

Eduard picked up his drawing pad and retrieved a pencil he had placed behind his ear and began sketching the island he saw growing in the distance. Zuko walked off to sulk with Mai and left Eduard to himself.

A half hour later the ferry landed at a dock in Ember Island. Azula walked up to Eduard as he put his drawing pad away in his knapsack and hefted it on his back. "Your father could have sprung for an inn. I had expected something a little less squalid and less like a hostel?"

"Won't you be joining us?" Azula walked along with Eduard down the gangway.

"I can spring for an inn," Eduard said decisively. "and I will. I have my own business anyhow. I have a visit to the Estate Agent's planned. I hope to purchase the old summer home of your family unless you object?"

"Knock yourself out." Azula raised her eyebrow. "How can _you_ possibly afford a summer home on Ember Island? I know you'd never do anything rash like steal money from the treasury but I didn't think you earned enough to afford a house."

Eduard stood on the cobbled path that led up to the main road that circled the small village. "I have simple needs and I saved so I could one day afford one." Eduard bowed to Azula and Ty Lee who had followed them quietly. "I bid you all a farewell." Eduard turned and began walking up the path to the main road to make his appointment with the Estate Agent.

Azula glanced at Ty Lee who proved less than helpful in most decisions. She knew Eduard didn't steal but he did have a way of placing his own money in profitable places which was what made him so invaluable to her.

Eduard appeared on the beach a few hours later jingling a set of brass keys on his finger and hoisting a large metal post over his left shoulder. "Ty Lee has a large number of drones," Eduard stood between the beach towels of Azula and Zuko and Mai and watched three young teenage boys fussing over her and serving her every wish. "I bought your family summer house for a song." Eduard reached into his vest and produced the deed to the place and the beachfront property. "Not literally a song since music isn't my thing but at a substantial bargain. I love the smell of freshly inked deeds in the mid afternoon."

"You're rambling." Azula sounded a bit ticked off. "Ty Lee!"

Eduard grimaced at Azula's shrill voice.

"Do you know how to play Kuai Ball?" Zuko asked politely.

Eduard had no use for organized sports and stood almost a head shorter than any of his Fire Nation friends and feared for his life. "Does it look like it?" Eduard said to Zuko. "I would laugh out loud but I have better things to do with my afternoon and one of them involves an eviction."

"Eviction?" Mai asked as she stood up.

"Zoology doesn't count as one of my areas of expertise," Eduard confessed, "but upon inspecting the house I purchased, I discovered two large and hissing green lizards with yellow stripes on their backs. I don't think we can form a lasting relationship."

"You didn't dress for the beach." Zuko noticed Eduard stood out in his black vest and red clothes.

"I didn't come to hang out on the beach. I didn't come to kill lizards so we don't always pick our duties." Eduard rambled. Azula hated this trait of his. She had hoped she could shape him into a more suitable Fire Nation noble but he never quite grasped formality or the exact way his rambling made him appear socially inept. She realized that she could make him dress like a Fire Nation noble, she even had taught him some rudimentary fire bending moves but she couldn't make him think as someone from the Fire Nation.

"Ty Lee!" Azula yelled louder.

"How will you get rid of mongoose lizards?" Zuko asked.

Eduard gave that a thoughtful look. "Fire bending? Azula did teach me a few basic moves." Eduard gave another thoughtful look at Mai. "Given my lack of accuracy and the desire not to burn down my new house, perhaps I'll stab them with a metal pole."

Azula fumed at Ty Lee's lack of attention. "Eduard?" She asked the young man. "Can you tell Ty Lee we need her as a fourth for a Kuai Ball team?" She looked on with disgust as one of Ty Lee's drones began rubbing coconut oil over her back.

"Sure," Eduard sauntered off toward Ty Lee's staked out territory on the beach. "do you want me to whack one of those guys in the back of the head with this metal pole?"

"No!"

"In the event I should whack one of them in the head; would you object?"

"No!" Azula hated Eduard's calm sarcasm most of all since she couldn't match his ability to quietly state things in a cynical manner with no regard for the social impact. She had enough of Eduard and gently pushed him on the back and hoped that with his short attention span; he would remember the Kuai Ball game.

Eduard knew Ty Lee well enough and it proved to him that some things remained constant across realities. Ty Lee had great beauty, had great combat stealth, acrobatic skills (and what teenage boy wouldn't find a woman who could bend backward and touch her feet intriguing) as well as a saccharine personality the opposite of Eduard's. The young teenage boys all hoped to get lucky and score; Eduard knew they didn't stand a chance because that was how things worked in his own Universe.

"Hi, Eduard." Ty Lee said as he approached with the metal pole that had once had an estate's agent's name hung from it.

"I bought a house." The agreeable man said as he nearly speared the tall teenager fanning the circus woman. "Azula told me something she wanted you to know.

"Watch out with that thing." The young man protested.

"No," Eduard said quietly in that absent minded way that convinced Mai he was Ty Lee's cousin, "at least I don't recall coming here with a thing to watch."

"You nearly stabbed me with the metal pole!"

Eduard worked back in his mind. '_Lizards – No_', he thought _'something about Kuai Ball?_' "Oh, sorry!" Eduard stuck the pole in the sand. "Azula wants you to play the fourth in Kuai ball."

"Ty Lee! Get over here." Azula yelled.

Ty Lee did a quick flip and walked down the beach on her hands.

"Now you must admit that she's gorgeous." The tall boy who had applied the sunscreen almost whistled.

"Me?" Eduard pointed at himself, "I admit to nothing. If you three have stopped deluding yourselves about dating Ty Lee can I ask you if you know how to kill _mongoose lizards?_" Eduard picked up the metal signpost and swung it around his shoulder and nearly impaled the shorter man who had also aided in fanning Ty Lee. "I'll take your silence as a_ no _then."

Eduard left the trio scratching their heads. Eduard looked about their age but his odd behavior and his obvious delusions that as young teenage boys with functional circulatory systems, they weren't the most appealing males in the world struck them as rude, standoffish and in a way it nudged one of their deeply held insecurities to the surface. They watched the small, odd man walk away whistling an odd tune with a syncopated rhythm and wondered '_what if I can't ever find a date and end up like him?_'

* * *

><p><em>Bang!<em>

_ Crash!_

Eduard tried to stealthily cross the attic with his sign post and utterly failed as a very expensive looking tea set with bright Fire Nation logos and gold trim resting on a box smashed to the floor of the attic and blew apart into a thousand fragments. 'Why did that idiot put a tea set on a pile of boxes where I could knock it down,' Eduard thought to himself. 'Anything that used logic', realized Eduard, 'could be outsmarted by something that could think as logically.' The lizards had a gift for strategy that Eduard had to admit, he lacked. He had hoped to sneak up on the lizards and dash their brains out with the metal pole and it had never occurred to Eduard who had grown up in a temporal climate and knew no reptiles by sight that evolution could have shaped lizards to think.

Eduard saw a shadow move and tried to land the sign post on it.

Azula grabbed the sign post as she climbed the wooden ladder into the attic. "If you want to succeed as a great fire bender," Azula spoke as if delivering a sermon, "you'll have to show much more brute strength than that."

Eduard quietly put down the metal sign post. "What about bashing random objects in the attic and hoping for the best? What makes you think anything in my comfortable life has ever prepared me for lizards?"

Azula sat on the edge of the attic hatch in the gloom and humid heat of the attic. "We have an invitation to a big party with all the teenagers on Ember Island or at least those who count."

"Teenage party?" Eduard leaned on a set of heavy boxes. "This a warning to me to go to minimum safe distance?"

Azula said nothing for a moment then as if ignoring Eduard's sarcastic comment explained further, "I intimidate men and asked for an invitation after the two guys hosting it had invited Ty Lee. I never do well at parties."

"I have..." Eduard turned his head because he thought he heard hissing, "never known you to fear anything." Eduard had never feared parties but he didn't much like them much because he didn't function as a social animal. If the host had a nice television and a capable cable box; Eduard spent his time watching movies or sports on television which often turned out to become a very popular activity among other guests. He knew Azula lacked that option but imagined a well made Pai Sho table could function in much the same way.

"What does one do for an entire evening with teenagers?" Azula asked' "Guys find me intimidating and I have nothing to talk with when I meet girls."

Eduard thought of something profound but a mongoose lizard hip ran out from a pile of wooden crates and gave him a forceful body check into a post supporting the roof hissing as it knocked Eduard off his feet.

Eduard crumpled for a second but Azula took no time in sending a focused blue fire bolt at the lizard and incinerated its back. The lizard made a pathetic hiss and then squealed helplessly as if caught in the murk of a tar pit. Azula sent a second fire bolt at the lizard and it collapsed in a smoldering heap of flesh. It continued breathing for a few moments and then expired.

Eduard coughed in the smoke and acrid smell of cooked reptile. "Where I came from..." he panted, "we would have given him a yellow card."

An hour later, Eduard sat in his kitchen wondering what to do with a dead, cooked lizard in his attic. Azula had solved one problem while creating a bigger problem which consisted of a hundred kilograms of congealed reptilian protein and that would quickly begin to turn bad in the heat of the attic. Eduard decided the brute force plan worked out best in his mind: find a long length of rope somewhere in the house and drag the purifying corpse of the reptile out to the steep drop off and roll him into the ocean.

Eduard hunted through the dim house with a lantern but after a long search found no rope. As the shadows of the trees grew longer, Eduard went out into the stone garden she and found an old length of rope. He tromped back to the house with a length of hemp rope ready to solve the next problem: _How would he haul a hundred kilogram lizard down two flights of stairs and outside?_

* * *

><p>He figured gravity would kick in at some point.<p>

The lizard Eduard had seen had a bulk of muscle behind its neck and Eduard winched as he threaded the rope around it to prevent the rope from slipping off. Bits of green baked lizard skin came off as he threaded the rope around the dead animal's neck and made a knot. Eduard began to drag the lizard which proved easier than he had thought since the lizard had cooked and a slick layer of grease formed under it.

"What in my comfortable existence ever prepared me for this?" Eduard uttered his motto as he let go of the rope and let the lizard fall through the attic hatch. It landed on the wooden floor with a greasy thump. Eduard followed behind it taking care not to slip on its supponofied fat. "Lizards and platypus bears – oh my!" Eduard dragged the lizard to the stairs and kicked it down to the first floor. Eduard worked out the shortest distance to the back door and dragged the lizard to the door, opened the latch that locked the door from the inside. He dragged the lizard through and then kicked it down the stairs; with a loud bang he closed the door and locked the bolt. He sat on the back door steps thinking about his next job. He gave up and decided to wash his hands in the kitchen sink and have some tea: the lizard wasn't likely to go anywhere.

The house had a front door, a back door and a large set of two heavy wooden double doors that lead out onto a stone paved courtyard about the size of a tennis court surrounded by a large wooden porch surrounding it. At least it didn't require mowing. Eduard had to wait until the gas utility had turned on the gas to have fuel for cooking and lighting. The sun had begun to set and he found himself wandering the house and sorting through old Royal Family belongings. He had noticed he smelled like a dead whale after handling the dead lizard and decided to take a shower and don his night robe.

The house had running water fed from a spring further up the side of the hill. Eduard opened the door to the bathroom and placed the lantern on the cabinet next to the sink. He let the shower run for several minutes to clear out the stale water and clean the shower. He went to his knapsack in the kitchen and brought out a large towel. He went back in the bathroom to the smell of boric acid and lithium from some hideous combination of minerals that came out in the warm spring water. He stepped into the pink marble tiled shower and could taste the foul metals in the water.

The shower allowed the small fire bender to relax. He had not become a master fire bender by any means but knew how to keep the shower water warm enough to make it tolerable. He had found as much freedom from his masters possible but as he showered, he knew Azula had no plans to grant him more. She saw value in his intelligence and isolation; while he had no knowledge of this world and relied on her to keep him alive and healthy. As a modern European, he had no idea what constituted food in this odd land, no idea what they used for medicine and he no knowledge of poisonous snakes, spiders or dangerous animals. Azula knew she had a use for him, something to trade and he had to comply or risk isolation as a helpless stranger.

Eduard found this bothered him less than he had imagined. He still harbored the colonial outlook of his homeland. The Fire Nation had become the leading industrial and economic power in the world and in Eduard's mind that meant they had a right to saunter around the world and stomp on the Earth Kingdom or other less advanced nations. Europe had abandoned this but Eduard understood the history behind it and like most Europeans; saw no reason to apologize to those nations they had abused. Indeed it had been a much needed push to advance the world. The Fire Nation in Eduard's eyes didn't look all that different that the great European powers. He often enjoyed thinking during showers and a so this shower took a half an hour until the minerals in the water began to wrinkle the skin in his hands and feet.

Eduard stepped out of the shower, donned a set of comfortable boxers and his fine red night robe with gold trip and decided to explore the house. He picked up the lantern and began to explore. The house needed work – hence the reason he got it at a bargain. He had to restore the water and gas, needed a new roof and a few walls needed repair. In spite of its abandonment, the basic structure remained very solid. He opened the door to a study. He disliked the red wallpaper and a large ivy had grown over the window and blocked out most of the light. Eduard had long wondered why the stately homes of the nobility had interiors better suited to coal mines. They loved dark interiors and did anything to suck up any light. Any light that managed to tunnel in, soon left to light up something with more taste.

Eduard peered onto a few boxes of books and examined the empty shelves and knew a clean up was in order and made a mental note to hire some local help. He walked into the large kitchen which had a double sink, a gas range and oven as well as more cupboard room than he would find useful. Ember Island had a town gas plant – they heated coal to drive off the flammable fumes and piped it into houses to provide light and heat for cooking. Eduard made a note to have the gas service restored as he found stumbling in a dark house with a lantern quite unnerving. On the whole, he felt proud he had purchased a nice house at such a good price and that most of the work could be done over a period of a few months. He placed the old chain and lock around the front door. He knew Ember Island had little crime but he viewed it prudent to not to take chances and placed the chain with its lock around the doors so he's remember to lock the front door.

He returned to the study where he had found the crates of books and found a dusty old couch that had withstood the years quite well. It had a solid dark oak frame and soft velvet upholstery and reminded Eduard of the kind of couches used in therapists offices. He went to the window and found the crank to open it worked but the strong vines of the heavy ivy kept the window from opening but a crack. He lay back on the couch and relaxed as he went through a list of the things that needed doing to turn this old house into a home.

Eduard let himself drift into a relaxed state – for him the closest he got to meditation. He woke up to a loud banging. Some time had past and it had grown dark outside. In the few seconds it took him to rouse his senses and grab the lantern; the front door smashed in and landed against the far wall of the porch with a thud. Eduard blew out the lantern and let his eyes adapt to the dark. Azula had schooled him in the arts of fire bending and he slowly opened the door without making a sound.

"Prince Zuko?" He muttered as he saw a figure in the dark hallway. The figure lingered at a stand in the hallway for a few moments and then Eduard heard the voice of Azula calling out from outside. The prince turned away from the stand and walked out. Eduard watched the two figures in the dim light of the evening. They left and Eduard approached the stand which had a plaster cast of a child's hand. Eduard shrugged and wondered why Zuko had taken to breaking into the house to steal from him.

Eduard had another item on his list – repair a front door. He reminded himself to speak with Zuko about this matter because he could think of better things to do in the mid morning paradise of Ember Island than fix a door. Eduard had not locked the chain and saw no reason for the hot headed Prince Zuko to bash in _his_ front door.

Eduard struggled with the heavy front door. Azula, Mai and Ty Lee came walking up the gravel road that lead to the house from the beach and watched in amusement as Eduard dragged the door into place just to have the heave door drop with a dull thud and slide down the stairs. The physical comedy of it made Ty Lee laugh out loud.

Eduard looked up at the three girls. "Hello?" He stood up and bowed in his polite way. "As I see it, Zuko should have come with you on this visit." Eduard looked at the door and then to the three girls. "I had some very loud yelling planned for him as he broke down the door to my house late last night. I enjoy yelling as it cleanses my soul."

"He's been at the wrong end of your temper so he decided to sleep in." Azula said. Eduard had a temper that Azula had seen detonate. He disliked Prince Zuko and considered him a colossal grumbler and they didn't get along. Azula could use this and decided it served her interests to keep the hostility going.

"Uncaring ass!" Eduard snapped. "I don't know how to fix a door and I had hoped he would turn up before we left this evening to help me repair it." Eduard ripped a leaf off a low growing palm on the side of the large stairs that led to the front door. "I need a door," He crumpled the leaves and tossed it to the side, "at least the people who are experts in houses recommend one. If I don't get this fixed then when I come next weekend I'm likely to half the wildlife of the island and some hobos living in my basement!"

That Monday found Zuko pacing outside of Eduard's office door. Zuko hadn't yet had enough time to come to know the young man who had become _Minister of Production_ but his reputation preceded him when Mai cautioned the young prince to fear Eduard's temper. Zuko knocked on the office door.

"Please enter," Eduard said loudly but politely.

Zuko opened the door with a quiet click and walked into the room. "Good morning Eduard."

"My door?" Eduard sat at his desk as he worked through the piles of papers on his desk. "Would you kick down the door of my office?" Eduard held a piece of paper in one hand and a stamp with red ink in the other. "As a matter of policy do you kick in a closed door like a footballer trying for a goal? I thought I'd ask because I'd hate to think a Prince of the Realm had trouble controlling his temper."

"I'm sorry." Zuko apologized, "I have not felt myself in recent weeks since I returned from my banishment."

Eduard stamped the paper and wrote a few characters on a piece of paper with a quill pen. "I had to have my door fixed so I trust you will see fit to pay the costs." Eduard handed Zuko a receipt on a yellow piece of paper.

"You didn't tell my father?"

"You want me to? Do you think he needs to know?" Eduard asked, "more to the point, would he care?"

"I mean...nevermind." Zuko blushed.

"I'm not on a first name basis with the Fire Lord." Edurad said frankly, "so pay for the door and we'll call it even."

Zuko bowed and began to leave.

"_The Day of Black Sun_." Eduard said enigmatically. "The day we expect the enemies of the Fire Nation to attack the city."

Zuko stopped and turned around. "How do you know?"

"Every time your father plans a military operation, it brings our nation that much closer to the financial brink. I receive many requisitions for many very expensive and unnecessary things because the warlords that run this country plan operations and make demands with no idea of the practical difficulties." Eduard fanned a yellow folder of paperwork. "We built _The Drill_ at huge cost and it sits at the edge of Ba Sing Se to this day. After the conquest of Ba Sing Se, Princess Azula ordered the Dai Lee to bury it at the bottom of a very deep pit to preserve its secrets."

"What secrets?" Zuko asked.

Eduard shrugged. "I have no idea. I wanted the materials recycled because _The Drill_ cost so much and took so long to build but no one listened to me – so there you go. Princess Azula had it buried in a pit rather than dismantle it."

Zuko paced Eduard's office. "Why tell me this?" The Prince spoke quietly as if he feared being overheard.

"I have my misgivings about the course Fire Lord Ozai has set before us." Eduard mused, "Pride goes before a fall and the waste and excess of the War worries me greatly. We can repel the invaders on _the Day of Black Sun_ as the rebels are nowhere near strong enough to defeat us."

"Isn't that good?"

"I fear not." Eduard said earnestly. "Fire Lord Ozai and Princess Azula have no idea of the scale of the Earth Kingdom – it's not a kingdom, it's a continent. It spans thirteen time zones and has an area of fifty million square kilometers or more. By my numbers, that makes the Earth Kingdom two hundred times larger than the Fire Nation in area. We conquered Omashu and Ba Sing Se and that leaves us forty nine million eight hundred thousand more square miles to hold."

"Why tell me?" Zuko said sadly as if acknowledging the truth of Eduard's words.

Eduard folded his hands neatly on the desk. "The Fire Nation in the Earth Kingdom is like a huge saber toothed moose lion in a field of ants. The moose lion will kill thousands or million but in the end the ants will eat the moose lion to the bone. I no longer sleep well and I can't find happiness. I feel ill and tired. If you have a moral conscience, I hope you will help us out of this trap."

Zuko said nothing for a few moments. "Why do you keep working for the Fire Lord? Why keep doing your paperwork and duties."

"My will to live still remains?" Eduard said enigmatically, "I have a heart defect and without medication I could die. Your sister knows this and she controls the supply of my medication and if I defy her; she'll cut me off and I'll die a painful death. She uses this to keep me in line." Eduard opened up his hands, "so there you go."

Eduard went on a walk late that afternoon and wandered through the Fire Nation Palace gardens and stopped to examine the flowers. Azula knew Eduard had a schedule and stuck to it as a stubborn routine and decided to meet up with him as he turned past the crimson colored bush of rhododendrons that seemed to so captivate him.

"I had not expected this from you." Azula said as Eduard held a rhododendron blossom in his hand. "I hear that you have grave concerns about our fortunes in the War."

Eduard might have found this surprising but he didn't show any signs of surprise. He half expected Azula to have spooks listening in on him. He gently let go of the blossom. "I thought the walls might have ears. If I have to censor every word I say, I'll never say anything remotely useful."

Azula looked at him impatiently. "The Fire Nation will lose the War? Remotely useful?"

"Why did you have _The Drill_ buried?" Eduard said as he faced Azula. "We spent a huge sum building that machine – more than all the naval ships we built in ten years – and you made no attempt to recover the thing? It lies buried at the bottom of a pit at the western walls of Ba Sing Se. We have begun to run out of steel, oil and coal to carry our war efforts forward."

"_The Drill_ held vital state secrets," Azula replied, "and we could not let its secrets fall into the wrong hands."

Eduard didn't believe a word of this lie. "That thing lay outside of the walls of Ba Sing Se for almost two months before the city fell. I have no doubt the Earth Kingdom had a chance to crawl all over the thing and examine its _secrets_." Eduard put his hands behind his back as he faced Azula. "I can see only two reasons to bury the thing in a deep pit. The Fire Nation has secrets to hide from the world and something about the manner in which you built that thing made it impossible to recover."

Azula glared at Eduard. "You're on the edge of becoming insubordinate." She put her hand on his back and patted him. "_The Drill_ holds a dark secret but the Avatar bears the reason for it's final destruction." Her voice dripped with contempt.

Eduard took this as typical Fire Nation paranoia as he had seen the plans for The Drill and nothing except its scale offered anything new. As a terror weapon, it failed and turned into the largest heap of scrap metal anyone had ever tried to power with a steam engine. He decided to remain silent about this.

Azula motioned to Eduard to follow her. "I remind you that you speak far too freely. I don't like to think you have become a freethinker."

Eduard spent his first weekend at the new house. The contractors had repaired the door and begun working on the roof. He smelled no funk and hoped the gardener's he'd hired to straighten things up had done away with the dead lizard. He found the crates he had sent over the previous day neatly stacked on the front porch with a crowbar place on top of the largest one by the movers. Eduard retrieved his mail and as he passed through the front door cast a glance around the house to check for anyone lurking in the bushes. He made his way to the kitchen and found the gas and water service had been restored as promised. He placed his bags on the table and pulled out a can of tea and with a small flick of his fingers, turned the knob of the stove and lit the flame. He turned it off and decided to open the crates on the front porch and begin unpacking.

The house still had little natural light and Eduard had to admit he awaited the time when he had the interior repainted. He sorted his dishes and tea supplies into the cupboards. He had a delicate tea set with roses on a white glaze and he placed the tea pot on the old stove and lit the burner.

He heard a knock at the door. The knock had the kind of urgency and authority and Eduard expected to see Azula on his front porch.

"I had not expected to see you," Eduard said politely and bowed.

Azula held up a sign Eduard had in one of his crates. "Golgatha – The Place of the Skull?"

"Là est votre salut." Eduard laughed quietly.

Azula had come to understand some of Eduard's strange language and returned with a translation. "Happiness waits for you there." She waited for a look of surprise and found a hint of one just barely slinking across Eduard's face. "May I come in?"

"By all means," Eduard motioned to invite Azula into the house. "I've made tea."

Azula followed Eduard to the dim dining room. She smiled slightly but Eduard never noticed. "I came to see you because I have a serious issue to discuss with you."

"I see." Eduard said quietly as he held the tea strainer and filled it with tea.

Eduard had no dining room table so Azula leaned against the near wall and looked at her fingernails. "My father has decided to have Prince Zuko executed."

Eduard had a look of fear not surprise on his face.

"If you let news of this leak beyond this room; I will have you killed as well." Azula growled. "After The Day of Black Sun, we will have my brother arrested and tried for treason, then he will die. We know the Avatar lives. Zuko knew this but told no one so he will die for his treason."

Eduard held the tea pot but his hand visibly shook. "Why tell me?" He had reason to fear for his own life as he waited with his hands shaking.

"You have become a liability," Azula crossed her arms. "I have reason to believe you would side with my brother and so I've decided to have you executed on the same day. Unlike Zuko, I have decided to have you tossed in prison now so you can suffer."

Eduard nodded.

Azula had hoped to have the thrill of running Eduard down and snaring him as he tried to flee in fear but Eduard showed no emotion as he turned the stove off. Azula cautiously approached Eduard but thought to herself _'I have nothing to fear from this small man'_. She watched him carefully as she walked toward him anticipating a fire bending attack but he did nothing. She put her hand on his back and he obediently walked down the hall.

Eduard relied on good old fashioned guile. He knew Azula expected a fire bending attack but he hip checked her against a solid wall and then elbowed her in the nose. Eduard knew she could beat him with fire bending but not with hockey violence. Eduard had officiated hockey since in his world, his heart problem was not a health threat and knew all the best ways to earn a penalty.

Azula crumpled and caught her nose. "Guys!" She stood up with blood dripping down her nose and ran after Eduard. "Get him!"

Eduard leaped down the stone steps of the front porch. He knew he couldn't escape and expected Azula to cut him down or her guards would trap him in a net. He refused to make arresting him an easy affair. He heard knives whistling through the air. He had heard pucks make much the same sound and he moved with agility to avoid them. The knives flew into the bushes having missed their target. _'It would be rude to interfere with play.'_ He thought to himself as he felt a sting in his right side as he hit the bottom of the porch steps. He felt his body hit the ground and he could not get up.

Ty Lee stood over him as he fell to the stone path with a tear in her eye – Eduard had not expected this. Mai had a deeply sad look on her face as she stood over Eduard but said nothing.

Eduard tried to warn Mai of the plans for Zuko but he found he could not speak.

Azula stood over him as blood dripped out of her nose accompanied by two Fire Nation guards. "Get him out of my sight." She kicked him hard in the side of the head and his vision faded.


	2. Chapter 2

**The Tourists Guide to the Realm of the Avatar**

**(The Voyage of Eduard)**

**Chapter 2**

Eduard sobbed softly in his dark cell. The breeze through the window chilled him to the bone and he felt pain.

Azula had tortured him over three days and yet failed to break Eduard. She had questioned him about secret matters he knew nothing about and about plots that didn't exist. He couldn't even work out a lie to satisfy her and she grew more intent, angrier and more determined to place Eduard at the center of schemes and plots.

During her first interrogation, she lost her temper and scraped his left eye out with some sharp object as three guards held him up.

He felt the phantom pain of his eye and the open socket had dried out and a scab had formed inside the socket. When Azula had scraped out his eye, the swiftness of its departure softened the pain but a few days later, the pain had become unbearable. Eduard wondered if his brain had waited until he was alone to report all the pain and damage done to his eye. He found it odd that he could feel his eye and he felt like he had salt and grit rubbed into it but he could tell he had no left eye by the way the left side of his face had collapsed around the empty socket.

She had him placed in a cell and ordered the guards to let him have no visitors. She had made certain he had an eye-patch, good clothes and decent food but if he dared speak, the guards tending to his needs slugged him in the stomach shoved the butt end of a spear into his stomach.

Eduard lay in the dark and wondered if he had died and entered some kind of a hell although he had never taken religion seriously. The cell had a small window which gave him some light during the day but the black basalt of the prison soaked light like a sponge. He knew he would have been better off to find himself sent off to the Boiling Rock. The Fire Nation sent prisoners there to rot for the rest of their sad lives. He found himself in a prison near the capitol in a cell which meant Azula had more torments in store for him before his execution.

Exhaustion and shock took hold and Eduard fell fast asleep.

* * *

><p>He woke up with a duller pain that verged on a migraine. He worried about the ever present threat of an infection in his eye socket and knew that it would prove fatal as it had such a short trip to his brain. The light blinded him for a moment and pain shot through his head.<p>

"I understand that you may go blind," Azula spoke through a narrow slot in the door. "If you had only proved more loyal. The day after _The Day of Black Sun_ will prove glorious as I will see my foes vanquished and I will rejoice in the death of my rivals"

Eduard sat up in his cell. The metal cells had a design meant to humiliate their prisoners. Eduard was one of the few who could stand in the metal cages. "I haven't gone blind," Eduard had nothing to lose in defiance and he spoke confidently. "Many have made plans to rejoice in the death of their enemies but the future doesn't always come out as planned."

Azula found Eduard's calmness in the face of torment an aggravating personality characteristic. She came into the room with two guards and stood up before the sitting Eduard. "You know you won't see the light of day until the time of your death." Azula snapped her fingers and a young woman in the dress of a servant came in with a tray of bandages and ointments. "I came to make sure you don't get an infection." She motioned the guards in face masks and full helms forward and they unlocked the small metal door on Eduard's cage and dragged him out and shackled him. "We can't have you looking rough – people will think I mistreat my prisoners."

"How kind of you," Eduard smiled sarcastically. "I don't suppose you have a _replacement _for my eye?"

Azula stifled the urge to injure this small man. The guards held him tightly.

The servant said nothing and looked as if she found nothing pleasing in her duties as she worked at cleaning out Eduard's eye socket. Eduard squirmed but the two guards held him still. He found the entire ordeal immensely painful as the young woman rinsed his eye socket with iodine and rubbing alcohol. He could hear the sound of scraping from inside his skull and this made him sick to his stomach. She finished and Eduard let out a soft sigh of relief.

"Please get our prisoner his new clothes." Azula ordered the servant. "I want you to dress well.. I plan to have you executed in public at noon and I want you to look every bit the fine Fire Nation public servant. People will take this as a lesson that displeasing me can have unspeakable consequences."

The servant returned, bowed and placed the clothes on the top of Eduard's cage along with a cup of tea and one day's dose of his heart medication. She stepped back and then left the room quickly.

Eduard said nothing for a few seconds. "I don't think I like this plan."

"I don't care if it meets with_ your _approval." Azula snapped and fed him his medication and then lukewarm tea.

"We are such things as dreams are made on and each of our little lives are rounded by a sleep," Eduard said softly. "I have a dream – do you care to hear about it?"

"Tell me!"

Eduard summoned his courage although his arms ached from the strong grip of the guards and the weight of the shackles. He had a headache that pounded with his heart and he had _no_ idea if he would even survive long enough to attend his execution. He had nothing to lose. "I hope you will one day wake up from your long nightmare. I hope you will wake up from your little dream before you destroy yourself."

Azula slapped him and left.

* * *

><p>A neat package of clothes lay next to Eduard in his cell. The weeks had passed and the conversations with Azula had not become any more coherent; the routine of tea and medication hadn't changed either. The cell remained dark and he lost track of the date. Azula had made sure he remained neat and clean and he had a small bucket for his business that a guard changed everyday. He had no idea how long he had to live or how he would die. One day Azula didn't show up to speak with him. Only the little servant girl turned up to clean up his wounds and shave him and she seemed sadder than usual. He watched the light from the narrow slit of a window grow dim, turn blood red and then the room grew as dark and dim as night. <em>The Day of Black Sun<em> had arrived. Eduard wept from terror and from grief since he had lost all hope of seeing his home.

Eduard heard the sound of guards running urgently down the hall. He heard sounds that to him sounded like firm body checks against the walls of the prison.

A burly guard fell through his door headfirst jamming the steel door open with his helmet. The guard slumped on the floor unconscious. Eduard saw a rush of guards fly past him and then fly back striking the wall. An elderly man with unkempt white hair looked into his cell, picked up a guard, tossed him to one side and entered the room. Eduard looked up at him.

"Flee! You don't have much time!" The old man said as he smashed the chain holding the cage of his cell closed in one blow. The man saw that they had not shackled Eduard and he turned and left in a flash.

"Thank..." Eduard picked up his bundle of clothing as if that would help him and walked out of his cell.

He walked cautiously down the hall expecting an ambush and clutching his bundle of clothes. The prison formed a semi circle and so he couldn't see far down the dim hall and with one eye he had trouble seeing depth and kept worrying about bumbling into someone on his blind side.

"Ah!" Eduard screamed as he bumped into Zuko running up the dim hallway.

"Have you seen my uncle!" Zuko asked urgently as he grabbed Eduard's shirt and shook him. "He wasn't in his cell!"

"Uh," Eduard reeled, "Old, short stocky man? He freed me after he tore up this place. I have no idea where he went!"

"Did he say anything!"

"No!" Eduard knew eclipses didn't last long and felt a sense of rising panic. "Zuko! We must leave now! Your sister plans to have both of us executed tomorrow. She has gone quite mad. She ripped out my left eye and she wants to rid herself of the burdens in her life."

"I have a place to go!" The sight of Eduard's scarred left eye removed all doubt in Zuko's mind. Zuko dragged Eduard by his shirt. "Follow me!"

Eduard ran along with Zuko through the deserted and dark streets of the Fire Nation capitol and struggled with his package. Zuko kept having to grab him to keep him from blundering into things. They followed a narrow path that led out of the city, along the outer rim of the crater that rimmed the city and into a cave.

"If I asked you where were going, what would you say?" Eduard gasped.

Zuko looked back at Eduard, "I know where they store the war balloons so we can steal one and make our escape."

"Escape to where?"

They emerged above a large cut made in the outer wall of the crater. Eduard could see a large field and three large buildings like warehouses that didn't appear to be guarded.

"I plan to follow my destiny and teach the Avatar fire bending so I can defeat my father and restore peace and balance to the world!" Zuko led Eduard down a narrow set of steps to a gravel path behind one of the warehouses. No guards were present but Zuko kept a wary eye out for them. "I had planned to go alone but I could use your help and I can't leave you to face my sister." He peered around the edge of the stucco wall of the warehouse. "See those red balloons? Help me steal one of them and we can fly away from here."

Eduard saw three hot air balloons with wicker baskets with a large Fire Nation symbol on their sides. He had wished for a stealthier means of escape and one that looked less frail.

Zuko led and Eduard followed him along the side of the warehouse ducking under windows and yet moving quickly toward a fully inflated red balloon with the Fire Nation emblem on it. The first searing rays of bright sun began to poke out from behind the moon. The eclipse had ended and fire benders had their skills back. Zuko motioned Eduard forward and they rushed for the balloon. Two men in the balloon looked like they had seen an unidentified flying object as Zuko jumped in the basket. Eduard saw one man fly out and land with his helmet taking a crazy bounce along the ground. Eduard struggled into the basket and found the second man trying to line up a shot at Zuko. Eduard jumped up and aimed his hip at the man's should and sent him flying off out of the basket. He had rotten depth perception and found himself almost toppling out of the basket and felt his shoulder twist as he slammed the guard over the side. Zuko cut the ropes that tied the balloon down to large steel stakes and they began to rise and move forward. Fire bolts flew past Zuko who deflected them with his skill. As they rose in the air, the bolts became less accurate and then missed wildly. Soon the balloon had risen out of sigh in the sky and become a speck too small to fire at.

"Can you fire bend?" Zuko asked Eduard.

Azula had taught Eduard some skills and Eduard had the talent but knew little of the fine art of combat. "Sort of."

"Keep the fire going while I steer!" Zuko commanded.

Eduard opened the door to the fire box, squatted down on the wooden floor of the basket and began pumping flames into it. The balloon had a small engine driven by the heat that inflated the envelope and as Eduard fed it flames, the balloon moved forward at about twenty knots and began to rise rapidly in the air as Eduard felt his ears pop.

Zuko seemed to know where he wanted to go and Eduard said nothing for many minutes.

"Why did my uncle free you?" Zuko asked after some minutes of uncomfortable quietness.

Eduard shook his head. "He busted down a door with a guard and freed me. I have no idea why."

"Do you have an eye patch?" Zuko asked nervously, "you're eye looks awful."

"Azula may have many skills, surgery doesn't number among them." Eduard said distantly. "She used some kind of throwing knife to gouge out my eyeball; at least I thought it was a throwing knife. I didn't have a chance to see it for long." Eduard took a break from his fire bending and looked through his clothing bundle on the off chance Azula had included an eye patch tp hide her nasty work for those viewing the executions. He found she had left him with five changes of clothing and five eye patches. He imagined she had some very odd issues in her life that would require a very skilled therapist to work out. He laced the patch over his left eye and could only imagine how stupid he looked. "My eye itches. How long until I find you vastly more irritating than my missing left eye?"

Eduard hummed and whistled. Zuko found his endless strings of melodies that followed a strange logic a very annoying trait. As the balloon crossed the Fire Nation coast and left out to sea; Zuko wondered if fate or bad luck had led him to travel with Eduard.

"Why did Azula have you jailed?" Zuko asked in order to stop the stream of endless whistling.

Eduard sat against the wall of the balloon basket and gave some thought to the question. "She thought I would side with you and she believed _you_ would betray the Fire Nation," Eduard pointed at Zuko as he spoke. "An amazingly accurate guess on her part given that _you are_ betraying the Fire Nation and I have come along. Do you think telepathy might be a family trait?"

"Our nation has become corrupt and lost its way," Zuko said sadly as he took a rest and sat next to Eduard. "I have to do my part to help the Avatar defeat my father."

"She planned to have you executed tomorrow as a traitor."

Zuko pondered this. "I should be surprised but I'm not. Azula almost killed the Avatar and almost killed me on many occasions. She won't stop until she has absolute power and she lives for war. She will stand by my father and destroy the world pursuing total power."

"Sibling rivalry," Eduard laughed for a moment then realized it was rude. "Didn't you have a role to play in defeating the Avatar and having your uncle arrested or did Azula lie to me?"

"I took her side in Ba Sing Se when we battled the Avatar." Zuko looked off into the sky of fluffy clouds, "I hesitated because I wanted my honor back and I have regretted my decision every moment since. My uncle won't talk to me and I don't know what to say."

Eduard had nothing to say at first: he didn't understand what honor meant to Zuko. Eduard had come to regard honor as not cheating on taxes, paying bills on time and all those things that made you a trustworthy person to deal with in financial transactions. Eduard knew Zuko meant something much deeper. "Our lives are taking a dead cat bounce." Eduard said grimly as he made a pathetic attempt to change the topic. "I have no reason to be optimistic about this new direction in your life."

"Dead cat bounce?"

"What do we do if the Avatar refuses your help? We can't expect a warm reception in the Fire Nation."

"You can fire bend." Zuko looked to Eduard.

Eduard tried to scratch his eye but the eye patch stopped him. "I have some skill but with one eye I keep having problems with depth perception. You haven't got your All Star hero here. Azula taught me some fire bending but she gave away none of her secrets."

"What did you do before you came to the Fire Nation?"

"I was a college student training to become a computer technician and I made a modest amount of money as a hockey referee." Eduard said slowly as he yawned. "Does the Avatar have any interest in hockey?"

"What's hockey?" Zuko said with an expression of confusion in his voice.

"I'm in hell."

* * *

><p>"Hell's bells!" Eduard exclaimed at the top of his lungs as a frog the size of a breadbox landed at his feet. He had taken a walk through the thick forest because Zuko had become cranky and wanted to be left alone.<p>

"I wonder if I should have tied him to a tree?" Zuko murmured to himself as he set up camp and heard his cry of distress. He had spent more time with Eduard than justice systems would have permitted and decided to let the irritating little man wander around the area and stumble into trees hoping he could have some quiet from the non stop stream of unending whistling.

"Do we have a toxic waste dump near by?" Eduard shouted, "or is my depth perception so messed up that I have mistaken a frog for a raccoon?"

"Badger frogs!" Zuko yelled through the trees. "The Island of the Western Air Temple has a lot of them."

"You see," Eduard yelled back, "until today I haven't seen anything wilder than the _Metro_ and my idea of wilderness is the row of trees on the side of a road. Our country had the good sense to kill off the dangerous wildlife hundreds of years before I came on the scene." Eduard bumped into another tree. "Those frogs aren't dangerous?"

"No!" Zuko snapped. "You can fire bend so you can defend yourself!"

Eduard watched the frog leap off into the woods as he walked close to them. They acted cautious but not afraid of humans. "I think killing a frog sounds a little unsportsmanlike. Eduard then changed topic abruptly as he pushed a bush with white berries to one side. "In my homeland, we like our wilderness tame and our wildlife in zoos. We like our medicine socialized and our taxes high. We once had an Earth shattering war and yet our countries came together to impede each others progress. We call this the _European Union_ or _Peace through Mediocrity_." Eduard began heading back toward Zuko knowing Zuko would still be cranky. "We never knew about bending but we had television and if I wanted a snack in the middle of the night after watching television then I could go down to a convenience store and buy snacks."

"I have bigger problems than snacks, Eduard," Zuko said as Eduard sat down on a large stone.

Eduard swatted a mosquito that had landed in his arm. "Bigger than living in a squatters camp in the middle of freaking _no where_ with nothing but a tent over our heads and something you found in the balloon called _Fire Nation Marine Rations_ and a sack of _Fire Flakes_?" Eduard shook his head. "How do you even know the Avatar will show up?"

Zuko paced the little camp. "He left on his flying bison on a heading that took him to the _Western Air Temple_. He's going to show up – I just know it."

"We don't have a set of dog tags," murmured Eduard, "so they won't be able to identify our remains when they find us. In six weeks before we reach the stage where we're drinking each others urine and discovered that bush with the red berries was toxic, you'll give up?"

"It's late Eduard," Zuko decided not to argue as he had long concluded Eduard enjoyed complaining and he had suffered in prison. Zuko decided to lett the little man vent. "The Avatar will arrive tomorrow so let's get some rest."

"We have three of those badger frogs in our tent."

* * *

><p>"One, two, three..." Eduard stood at the edge of a vast, deep canyon and counted. He had decided to check the depth of the canyon as he had no depth perception and first thing in the morning, his sense of curiosity got the better of him.<p>

"What are you doing?" Zuko looked at Eduard with a puzzled look as Eduard held up his hand.

_Clank!_

Eduard lowered his hand. "Assuming that the acceleration due to gravity is 9.8 meters per second squared; I absolutely refuse to climb down with you on a rope to investigate the Western Air Temple given that I would do a header into a vast canyon deeper than the _Eiffel Tower_ is tall."

"I want to check out this place." Zuko said in a determined voice. "My uncle and I came here just after my dad banished me."

"In my world, we had a tribe of people living in what is now America," Eduard began professorially, "and they lived in the cliffs of canyons. They built a great civilization and then vanished utterly from the face of the planet."

"Why did they vanish?"

"Lived in the cliffs _of canyons_?" Eduard ventured. "They were an ancient and wise race known as the - well I forget. They built great cities but didn't have knowledge of the railing. One little misstep and you wound up being an obituary."

"The Air Nomads had four temples – _the Northern Air Temple, the Southern Air Temple, the Eastern Air Temple _and_ the Western Air Temple_." Zuko looked over the cliff edge. "They built them in places where only the Air Nomads could reach them easily."

"I've got wonky depth perception," Eduard said as he watched Zuko tie a rope around a sturdy tree.

"Whatever," Zuko said as he fed out the rope. "Keep an eye on things. I'll be back."

Zuko grabbed the rope and began repelling down the cliff face. Eduard watched him vanish below the lip of the canyon and began pacing. A few minutes passed as Eduard cursed his life, his misfortune and began wondering if that dull squishy thump was Zuko when he saw a speck flying on a level line heading toward him. He squinted and tiled his head to try and bring the speck into focus. He saw a six legged creature flying toward him. Eduard decided to hide among the trees in case what he saw was not the product of his weary imagination and was actually someone or something hostile. He crouched behind the large tree Zuko had tied to rope onto and waited. The huge creature slid past. Eduard gaped as he watched a furry_ something_ the size of a house and the mass of a whale defy gravity as if the laws of physics were unenforced bylaws. The creature had a group of people sitting in a large wooden basket not unlike that of the war balloon Zuko had stolen but strapped _on top_ of the ten ton monster. Eduard had the kind of mind that expected a flying object the size of a house to make loud roaring noises but this thing slid silently through the air. The glided softly below the rim of the canyon leaving Eduard to scratch his head when he badly wanted to scratch his eye.

"Eduard!"

Eduard jumped back. "Zuko – what the hell was _that!_"

"A sky bison," Zuko said as if Eduard had seen nothing as exceptional as a groundhog, "the Avatar's companion."

"Thanks for clearing that up." Eduard looked down at Zuko. "Should I pull you up now?"

"The Air Temple has a number of a secret back passages that leads into into the temple far from here. " Zuko pointed behind him into the forest. "You see that large tree with the wide base that has the wooden buttresses?"

Eduard nodded.

"One of the passageways is underneath it. You'll find a stone tunnel with steps that will lead you to a place called the _Hall of Echoes_."

"Why _did_ you take a rope down?" Eduard wanted to say 'moron' but that seemed uncalled for. "Given that the place has a perfectly serviceable fire escape why didn't you use it? Are you one of those adrenaline junkies that enjoys taking a risk for the shear thrill of facing death? When we go to greet the Avatar and he tries to kill us, do I have your promise that we will use the serviceable fire escape and not the rope? I have no desire to become a dead and forgotten pile of bleached bones on this godforsaken heap of granite in the middle of nowhere."

* * *

><p>"What would you say Eduard?" Zuko sat on a log outside of their red tent that evening and tormented himself with doubt.<p>

"We have far more frogs this evening. Have you been feeding them?" Eduard had a stick and tried to herd a badger frog in a square.

"To the Avatar!"

"Not that," Eduard tapped the bloated green and black body of the huge yellow eyed frog. "I suggest more care and diplomacy..."

Zuko walked around and held a kind of town hall while Eduard followed the badger frog into the forest for a moment to investigate whether these things had a nest. Eduard came back with the stick over his shoulder and found Zuko muttering to himself.

"Iroh talks _like_ that?" Eduard poked at another badger frog to goad it into moving. "Does he walk into the living room and ask you why he came into the room?" For some reason the frog fell asleep rather than moving when Eduard tapped it. "That won't help you because most of the things you see inside yourself are of little or no use in a moral dilemma unless the spleen has some role in ethics."

"I mean it!" Zuko protested. "I _have_ to talk to these people."

"In the event everything else fails, you could try the truth." Eduard said as he looked at the badger frog now sleeping where he wanted to sleep. "Hello – Zuko here." Eduard gestured as if playing Zuko. "I have tried to repent and I came to help the Avatar learn fire bending. I know I have done wrong but I have turned over a new page in my sad life."

"How do I explain you?"

"You don't," Eduard shrugged, "I will explain me. I will say that I came to – you know I have absolutely no reason for being here. You have great fire bending power, the Avatar according to Azula has a circle of friends he has met that have great talents. I have one eye and can put badger frogs to sleep." Eduard could see Zuko looking somewhat annoyed. "We're screwed."

"You don't like out chances of convincing the Avatar to accept us?" Zuko asked earnestly.

Eduard threw up his hands. "I admit to being excess baggage on this trip."

Zuko shook his head, "uh – huh, you're less than helpful Eduard."

"We can return to the Fire Nation and try to appeal to Azula's kind side," Eduard replied. "Sorry sis'; all been a glorious cockup. We had a little too much beer and things kind of got out of control. Let's get back to work on ruining the planet and killing people."

* * *

><p>"I have decided to go alone!" Zuko announced as Eduard emerged from the tent fully dressed in his Fire Nation finest. "You speak your mind and might say something unfortunate."<p>

"What's wrong with that?" Eduard brushed off his vest. "Given my circumstances, everything I say is unfortunate."

"They don't know you and so I want to go alone." Zuko straightened up his clothes. He had taken until late in the afternoon to work up his courage to go and see the Avatar and his friends and decided he could live without Eduard saying something to make his diplomatic efforts more difficult.

"What if they take you captive?" Eduard followed along with Zuko. "I can't fly the balloon and we're almost out of rations. We have a sack of _Fire Flakes_ but I'm willing to drink my urine before going that far. In a few weeks the malaria tablets run out and this island seems to lack a pharmacy."

"I will make sure they know about you if worst comes to worst," Zuko promised, "so go back to the camp and wait."

Eduard wished Zuko 'good luck' and went back to pacing about the small camp staying hidden and studying the badger frogs. Eduard pondered how Zuko might fare since he knew something of the tense history between Prince Zuko and the Avatar. Eduard sat down and pulled out a sack of rancid _Fire Flakes _and waited for Zuko to return. Eduard decided he hated this place – the heat beat down on him but he got no sun - the forest seemed to defy the daylight and the dense tree canopy held in the humidity and gloom.

Eduard sat on a log outside of the tent and a half hour later he heard Zuko tromping back through the forest and grumbling to himself. He came from behind at tree and looked at Eduard.

"They refused to let me join the group!" Zuko scowled.

Eduard stood up and noticed that Zuko was drenched. "Ew! You're all wet. What happened?"

"Katara drove me away with a water bending attack." Zuko said softly.

"Did you tell them about me?" Eduard asked selfishly. "I'm eating these _Fire Flakes_ which means I'm probably going to snap. I've spent two nights in a sleeping bag sleeping next to you and if this goes on I'm going to beat you to death with a rock in the middle of the night!"

"What did _I _do?"

Eduard put his hands on his hips then pointed at Zuko with his right hand. "You mumble in your sleep. Last night you mumbled something about Mai's sweet lips and made kissing noises."

"Oh," Zuko said apologetically. "I miss her so much and left her with a broken heart."

"I sleep less than a meter from you!" Eduard went on, "Lip wise, can I trust you won't confuse mine with hers?"

"You're hardly an easy person to get along with!" Zuko said in a huff, "I've heard you whistling for the better part of three days!"

"I think we need some time apart from each other," Eduard said as he walked away. "If you want me, I'll be hucking things off the edge of the cliff."

"Why?" Zuko asked.

Eduard waved as he walked toward the edge of the canyon, "I need to know physics still works. I saw that sky thing fly past a while back and if the physics gods have gone on strike or taken a day at the beach; we could find the Sun blowing up or worse."

Eduard knew the Avatar world had the same physical dimensions as Earth as the Moon had exactly the same behavior and so he knew how to calculate the distance falling objects fell. The Fire Nation divided time into the same hours, minutes and seconds but Eduard had no watch and had not the vaguest idea whether the figure he had for the depth of the canyon was at least in the ball park. After tossing the umteenth stone off the side of the canyon; his figures converged on 480 meters as the depth of the canyon.

Eduard grew bored and began to wander at the side of the canyon but he didn't feel bored enough to go back to Zuko. As evening crept in, Eduard wondered whether he had arrived in a place where the mass of bugs exceeded the mass of air. Small insects seemed to swarm in the air, frogs the size of toasters swarmed the ground and he still didn't venture a look over the edge for fear of losing his balance and toppling over.

A scuffle in the bushes caught his attention as he paced the side of the canyon.

Eduard found Zuko sulking as he sat on the ground.

"I smell something like burned fur!" Eduard said in a less than comforting tone of voice.

"The Avatar's friend the Earth bending girl tried to talk to me!"

"So you set her_ on fire_?" Eduard looked around at the haze of smoke settling in around the camp. "A direct approach if ever there was one."

"No!" Zuko yelled. "I reacted in surprise because she sneaked up on me."

Eduard thought for a moment. "So we're on an island where you thought we'd be safe and could meet up with the Avatar and the _white hats_?" When you get a chance to meet one of the good guys you set them on fire? We're screwed."

Zuko held his chest, "she fired a rock into my stomach." He held back his feelings of pain.

"Can I say something?"

"Zuko pulled himself up to stand. "What?"

"We're screwed!" Edaurd said emphatically, "and I mean that in _the making my will and checking it twice because I will die on this rock_ way."

"I hired an assassin to kill the Avatar." Zuko added solemnly. "I don't know where he is right now - maybe he cant find us. When I came back from Ba Sing Se I worried that my father would find the Avatar alive and do something unspeakable to me. I thought this guy could do away with the Avatar and no one would be the wiser."

Eduard swore for a few minutes. "We_ have _to communicate!"

"I deserve that!" Zuko said sadly. "You got dragged into all of this. I'm sorry."

Eduard began to collect sticks to set a fire in the small camp. "You chase the mightiest being in all this world down with a hired gun? He won't take that as a sign of friendship." Eduard sat down next to fire and in the cloud of bugs it attracted. "We are screwed."

"I know." Zuko almost seemed to cry.

"If you want sympathy, you won't get it!" Eduard said severely. "Let me get this straight. You nearly killed the Avatar but when you failed; you hired someone to kill him to protect your reputation. You changed your mind and decided to help the Avatar but you didn't tell the killer under your employ about this crucial change? You met with the Avatar and friends and today and they told you to sod off and die. They send someone from their group as a diplomatic envoy – an olive branch – but you get strumpy and set her on fire? Now we have pissed off the Avatar, his friends and you still have some killer out to bump him off." Eduard paced angrily but then his tone changed and grew more sullen. "Do we have a chisel?"

"No?" Zuko sounded confused.

"Drat!" Eduard threw up his arms in frustration. "I wanted to get working on my headstone."

* * *

><p>Zuko was stubborn; Eduard had to give him that.<p>

Eduard decided to pace the campsite after Zuko had decided to try his luck again. Eduard had listened as Zuko rehearsed his speech and try to explain about his destiny and gave it a minimal passing grade: Zuko lacked the eloquence required to suck up to those he had tried to kill. Eduard dressed and washed up to prepare for the coming day – Eduard believed he could not face the day without a cup or two of tea, fresh clothes and a clean face. He sat down to enjoy a cup of tea and a bowl of Fire Flakes when a loud series of dull booms shook the forest. Birds flew off in a panicked manner that Eduard took as a bad sign. Eduard ran to the edge of the cliff and saw clouds of stone dust and smoke billowing out of the vast canyon that hid the Western Air Temple. Eduard ran back for the secret tunnel that lead down to the depths of the temple but never made it.

"Where in God's Name did that hole come from!" Eduard found himself careening down a hole cut through the ground – he swore he had never seen it before but a few weeks under Azula's care had left him a little unsure of his mental faculties. He felt great relief when he felt the tunnel level out and saw daylight at the end of it. He fell feet first and tried to grip the sides of the wall with his feet to slow down. He slowed down, felt a series of loud concussions and rocks shaken loose from the side of the tunnel struck him on the head. He fell out of the hole and slid head first into a pile of rubble at the bottom with ringing ears and the smell of pulverized limestone in his nostrils. Small pieces of sharp stone make a clattering sound against the walls and Eduard covered his head. Eduard looked up as his eyes watered from the acrid smoke and stone dust that hung in the air.

"What did that moron Zuko do!" Eduard exclaimed.

Sokka drew his sword and pointed it at Eduard's chest. Eduard stood up and raised his hands.

"Crap!" Eduard exclaimed.

"Zuko send another assassin after us!" Sokka exclaimed.

Eduard shook his head in disbelief. "What makes me look like an assassin? I remember taking that class where they taught us stealthy assassins to fall down holes and use as many rude words as possible! May I ask who dug that freaking hole!"

"Combustion man blew up," Sokka poked with his sword in a gesture that told Eduard to stand up.

Eduard's ears rang like a gong, he felt dizzy and he had no idea what had taken place. "What just blew up?" Eduard tried to steady his vision because even though he had one eye; it seemed out of focus. "You'll have to forgive me because I have no clue what just happened." He looked to Sokka and then the remarkably scary water bending girl and then to the three ton rocks that had fallen around the strange balcony. He had fallen down a tunnel into the midst of a group of people who wanted to kill him and so his body decided the best course of action given the threat level was to faint like a stone. Eduard's vision dimmed as he thought about having not carved his name into a rock. Sokka watched the strange blond haired man in fine Fire Nation clothes crumple like he had taken a blow to the jaw.

Eduard woke up in a small room carved out of the living rock. It let in daylight through three windows shaped in arabesque arches. They had no glass and green ivy grew into the room through them, spiders tracked across the ceiling and Eduard wondered how much he would have to pay each night or if such squalid conditions came at a monthly rate. He wondered to himself as he looked at the blue blankets how long anything stayed clean in such a place. The water tribe girl in the blue robes tended to him and walked up to him as he regained consciousness.

"Did Zuko survive?" Eduard asked as he lay back.

The girl gritted her teeth, "yes...he did. Aang has decided to let him join the group but we have no idea what to do about you. Zuko told us you once worked for Princess Azula."

Eduard looked around the room and then to the girl as she seated him up on his bed. "She took out my left eye as a retirement present. She thought I had planned with her brother to betray her and decided to have me executed."

"I know – Zuko explained this. You have a bad infection in your left eye." The girl in the blue robes said as she peeled back Eduard's eye patch. "The back of the socket is really bleeding badly."

Azula scraped my eye out with some kind of knife," Eduard said sadly as he sat on the bed and let the young woman tend to his eye. "I only saw it for a moment." He made a scraping gesture with his hand. "Then I felt a good deal of pain."

"I have to tell you that I would rather not have Zuko join our group," the girl in the blue robes said as she tried to examine the empty eye socket. "He sent an assassin to kill Aang. You two turn up and he offers to help us – I don't trust either of you but you look too pathetic to do much harm." The girl paused, "My name is Katara of the Water Tribe."

"Eduard of the half blind tribe." Eduard said as a matter of introduction. He felt a surge of energy as Katara worked on his missing eye; an electric, almost joyful power flowed through his head and the pain he had grown so used to eased up. "Thank you." Eduard felt no pain in his missing eye for the first time in weeks. "You haven't an all star fire bender in me: Azula never trusted me and so only taught me a few basics. I haven't yet figured out whether my life has taken a turn for the better considering I saw a guy blow up this morning. Perhaps my life took a dead cat bounce."

"Hey!" Sokka sauntered into Eduard's room and patted him on the back, "sorry for trying to stab you but we're not used to evil fire bending types who have turned good and we didn't expect Prince Zuko to become a good guy."

Eduard held up his hand to scratch his missing eye and Katara gently pushed his hand away. "Sokka? Can this wait?" She asked.

"Azula took my girlfriend Suki prisoner," Sokka opened up. "I saw what she did to you and I worry about Suki. Can you tell me anything - _anything at all?_"

Eduard could hear Katara cleaning his empty eye socket and then lower his eye patch over his mangled eye socket and he struggled like a young child in a dental chair to keep from squirming. "I can't tell you anything." Eduard apologized. "Azula never told me anything about anyone named Suki." He shook his head sadly. "I will hope for the best."

Sokka squeezed Eduard's arm as Katara tended to his eye. "I miss her."

"As I sat rotting in my cell," Eduard said quietly as Katara tried to keep his head steady, "I cried because I didn't think anyone missed me and that was worse than the pain of imprisonment so please hope to be with her again." Katara pulled his eye patch back in place. She had thought often of her hate of Fire Nation soldiers and she disliked Zuko but the gentle and insightful Eduard gave her no real reason for resentment. She found some kind of gentle kindness in his face and he had suffered unspeakable torment at the hands of Princess Azula but wore no resentment. "Who was this Suki?"

"I met her on Kyoshi Island. She belongs to the _Order of the Kyoshi Warriors_." Sokka answered.

"I had heard of them. Azula had them tossed in prison to rot," Eduard said thoughtfully, "but I have no idea where. I was in a prison near the Fire Nation capitol where Uncle Iroh was held but they kept me in solitary confinement. Sorry Sokka." Eduard tilted his head like a parrot as he looked at Sokka. "I admit to being out of the loop."

* * *

><p>The next day, Eduard liked his room but wished he could find a paper to read. He had rested and despite the news someone evil had exploded like a land mine, he felt in a good mood and decided to retrieve his things from the camp. The airy room felt nice, cool and the delicate spirals and light pastel shades of color on the walls told him these Air Nomads had a fine sense of humor. He felt in no hurry but sat up on his bed and sat for a few moments.<p>

Toph came into the room and sat on his bed. "I'm the _Blind Bandit_ – Toph Bei Fong!"

"Eduard," Eduard looked at the odd stocky girl. "What can I do for you?"

"Katara told me Azula plucked your eye out with a knife." She slugged his arm gently. "She says it itches. _How can it itch if it isn't there?_"

"My brain has always had my left eye hooked up and seeing things. In the normal course of events, the left eye doesn't go missing. I think my brain still thinks the eye should be there and it keeps trying to talk to it. Amputees often feel the same kind of thing in the limb that has gone missing." Eduard explained patiently. "I wish I had been unconscious at the time Azula took it out." Eduard raised his arms in resignation, "but there you go."

"The eye patch doesn't suit you," Toph said as she propped her arms on the bed, "Katara says you have lovely green eyes and that's such a loss. Jade green, she says."

Eduard stood up and stretched. "I need to go and retrieve our things. How do you get to the surface from here?"

"They have a series of tunnels behind the temples they used to get to the surface," Toph gently pushed Eduard in front of her. "The closest one takes you to the surface through an entrance in the ear of a huge statue of an air nomad."

Toph led Eduard down the dark hall and up to a central room that had a large fountain fed by gravity. Eduard had to admit the precarious statues and fine stone architecture had a certain playful style and with only one eye working, Eduard found the entire place vertigo inducing. He followed Toph up a narrow staircase carved out of the living white marble. Eduard hoped the rails had enough strength to keep him from toppling over from the vertigo inducing heights. The statue it led to had a head the size of a sky bison or modest house.

"Woah..." Eduard looked at the statue of a young monk. The artisans had given him an identity and to Eduard, looked like a bald Wayne Gretzky. "They did call him the _Great One_."

"Who?" Toph stopped and waited while Eduard admired the statue.

Eduard looked up and let his eyes follow the profile of the statue. "I could swear this monk looks like Wayne Gretzky. Who knew?"

"Who?"

"Master hockey player of great renown in our land."

Toph smiled and nodded and understood nothing but crawled into the two meter cavern that formed the ear canal of the statue.

A steep spiral stair case led up from what Eduard imagined was the cochlea. He held out his hand so he could find his way. In spite of the darkness, a cool breeze wafted through the narrow staircase.

"I'm glad I didn't have to help these people move in," Eduard walked carefully up the stairs and discovered he couldn't spread out his arms and that the stairs differed in size in such a way to make Eduard stumbled. "Can you imagine trying to get a wardrobe down these stairs?"

Toph pushed cobwebs out of the way. "They used the sky bison for that."

"Do you need any help?" Eduard could tell the burns on her feet caused her some pain.

Toph stepped onto a carved landing. "It's okay. Katara did some quick healing on my feet. I'll be okay and besides that, I wanted to talk to you."

"About what?"

Toph shoved on a wall and it opened into the bright sunshine. Eduard squinted at first as his eyes took time to adjust to the sunlight and he extinguished the flame in his hand. Eduard could see the red tent in the distance through the forest.

"I wanted to see Zuko and try to talk to him but he attacked me," Toph followed Eduard back tot he camp.

Eduard nodded, "I know – sorry about that." Eduard opened the red tent.

"How are you coping?"

"Coping with what?" Eduard picked up a bag and stuffed clothes into it. "I have to cope – I have no other choice. When this is all over, I'll wake up screaming and I'll need years of counseling. Right now, I hope to survive." He searched through the red tent and found a badger frog sleeping contentedly in the far corner. Eduard gently evicted it. "Everyone thinks I should feel upset and mad about what Azula did to me. I don't. I can't say I feel anything at all right now. Nothing in my comfortable life ever prepared me for the events I've experienced in recent weeks." Eduard had found all of the things he would need and motioned to Toph to return to the air temple.

Toph patiently asked him. "How are you coping with the loss of your eye?"

"Vertigo constantly follows me around." Eduard held onto a red bag. "I can live without an eye and the loss of an eye brought me here. I worked for Azula for the better part of two years and as time went back I felt more and more misgivings about what the Fire Nation was doing to people. I began to get ill because I couldn't escape from my duties in the Fire Nation. I suppose I lost an eye but gained my freedom. Looking at it that way, I came out ahead in the bargain"  
>Toph trudged along Eduard and gently led him around a tree. "No regrets?"<p>

"Plenty," Eduard looked at the curious stocky girl. "We have things to do and I can mourn for my loss later."

* * *

><p>Zuko tracked down Eduard as he walked along the long, narrow stone bridge between their main camp and the other balconies enjoying the evening breezes. "Where have <em>you <em>been?" Zuko asked Eduard in an almost accusatory tone as he approached Eduard. "I've been working all day with Aang!"

"I went topside with Toph: I went to collect the rest of our stuff from the camp." Eduard glared at Zuko. "You don't need to yell at me!" Eduard said impatiently. "We needed clean skivies and socks because I refuse to wander around this 'shroom addicts vision of a cathedral in dirty clothes. I thought you spent the day training the Avatar in the arts of fire bending!"

Zuko looked over the edge of the stone bridge. "I've lost my touch." Zuko held out his hand and shot a small flame from it which fizzled and turned to a puff of smoke. "I have to teach Aang and I can't summon my fire bending."

Eduard gave a less than useful look of bewilderment as he considered what to say to Zuko. "Maybe_ you_ can't fire bend without summoning evil? Does fire bending have a dark side and a light side?" Eduard could fire bend, but compared to Azula and Zuko; he was a mere circus clown and knew almost nothing about the history and cultural traditions of fire bending and felt helpless to say anything intelligent.

"No!" Zuko said impatiently.

"Does yelling at me help?" Eduard reached the stone veranda and turned around to face Zuko and express his annoyance with Zuko's rudeness. "Perhaps you're nervous? Have you ever had to read something in front of your class and your tongue turns to rubber and you can't say anything without sounding like you have a mouth of cotton?"

"I can't summon my power," Zuko walked around the feet of a statue, "and _if _I can't summon my power, I can't help the Avatar defeat my dad."

"Oh?" Eduard scratched his head above his left eye. "Have you talked about this with anyone?"

"Only a fire bender could understand this," Zuko said as Eduard stared up at a statue. "I _need_ to know why I can't summon my power." Zuko had no idea why he had chosen to talk to Eduard as the man seemed oblivious to anything around him but the others hadn't really accepted him and he could imagine their ridicule _if_ he revealed his problem. "You have no clue..."

"None," Eduard shook his head as he pondered what name to give the statue. "I will admit I have no idea what's gone wrong. This explodes the theory that _only a fire bender could understand this_. Zuko, I can fire bend, but that doesn't mean I understand fire bending. Azula taught me a few parlor tricks and a fun way to start the stove but you know I don't have the heart of a fire bender and I never understood how Azula could unleash such a mad fury."

"I can't talk to the group," Zuko sighed, "Katara will find this so funny and the others will humiliate me. Sokka already makes fun of me and Katara hates me."

"You're delaying the inevitable. I know you think of me as a pest and you think I'm a scatterbrained twit and the reason you're telling me this is that you're trying to avoid talking to the others openly about this - not because I have anything useful to say." Eduard wrung his hand behind his back as a sign of growing frustration. Eduard looked at Zuko and tilted his head like a parrot as he looked at the puffs of smoke coming up from the far veranda as the group began cooking their evening dinner. "I'll let your newly discovered moral compass decide the best course of action."


	3. Chapter 3

**The Tourists Guide to the Realm of the Avatar**

**(The Voyage of Eduard)**

**Chapter 3**

Eduard had not heard Zuko's speech for he had a much finer instinct for knowing when his presence was not welcomed. Toph and Katara had spoken with him, but the group now seeking refuge in the remains on the Western Air Temple had no desire to meet him. Eduard woke up the next morning and took a cold shower – dumped a metal bucket full of water from the fountain over his head and prepared himself for the next day. Within a half an hour; he was dressed neat as a pin and ready to confront the day. He looked out the window into the sunlight of the day as he stomped his boot into place over his left foot.

Katara shook her head as she leaned against the stone doorway. "Have you had any trouble fire bending?"

"Not really," Eduard left the comb in his hair and turned the palm of his hand. An orange flame grew out of it and danced as Eduard held his other hand over it.

"Zuko left with Aang and Appa this morning," Katara said with a hint of concern in her voice. "They are off to poke around some place called the_ Island of the Sun Warriors_ to learn something about the origins of fire bending."

"He told me last night that something was wrong but I told him to talk with all of you," Eduard began to braid his hair. "He never told me any about taking a trip but if he thinks it will help." Eduard sounded doubtful as he finished the braid in his hair and tied it off with a dark red silk ribbon. "_The Island of the Sun Warriors_? I'll admit my ignorance." Eduard adjusted his eye patch and motioned to Katara to walk with him out to the front of the Air Temple.

Eduard emerged into the large patio which had faded murals on old stone plaster walls that showed the things that stirred the Air Nomad's hearts. He found it dreary as it looked fire damaged and fade like those great ruins of Mayan cities. The patio had a set of louvered doors standing on three sides and a fountain in front of that. Eduard wondered how the Air Nomads had done all of this work as stone didn't behave well when hung under tension. Eduard wandered around the whole temple poking around, looking at the ivy and small trees that grew out of the cracks.

"Do you want an apple?" Sokka rushed up to Eduard as he entered one of the out buildings of the temple. The apple struck Eduard off one side of the head. Sokka looked at Eduard with a look of embarrassment. "Sorry?"

Eduard glared at Sokka who looked embarrassed. "Next time, could you hand that to me? I haven't got good depth perception."

"Do you think Zuko can regain his bending?" Sokka followed Eduard into the delicately carved reaches of the temple.

"I don't know," Eduard shrugged, "I never heard of the _Sun Warriors_ before today. They may find nothing more than ancient ruins and find themselves in the same situation as me. I look at these images. I can see the sky bison painted on walls, the statues and all of the symbols. All this must mean something very important to these people or they wouldn't have put all the work and craftsmanship into decorating their homes in such a delicate manner. These people have all gone and they have left use some profoundly beautiful but mysterious things to look at."

Sokka followed beside Eduard as he examined the artwork. "I forget that you don't think like most fire benders."

"I don't consider myself a fire bender – nor a Fire Nation citizen of any importance," Eduard walked along the walls of the inside rooms of the temple as if viewing paintings in a gallery. "I know a few tricks but I've got a bad heart and if I exert myself I might collapse."

Sokka looked at the frail looking man in front of him. "Oh?"

"I had no problems as long as I took medication. Azula kept me under her thumb by controlling my supply of foxglove." Eduard mused over a painting of a sky bison as he spoke to Sokka. "Now that I don't have my medication, I have to watch how much I exert myself."

"What happens if you don't have this stuff?" Sokka casually tossed the core of an apple out one of the open windows.

"I could die." Eduard decided not to explain the finer points of cardiac medicine to Sokka.

"What!" Sokka looked shocked. "Do you think that gonna happen?"

"I give myself about a fifty percent chance." Eduard said glumly. "Among our collection of bald guys, people in wheelchairs, blind chicks with personality and your sister; we have no doctors. Am I the only one that foresees a problem with this?"

* * *

><p>Eduard had odd habits. Haru of the Earth Kingdom had a theory that he had gone slightly mad because of his torture at the hands of Azula. He listened to Eduard whistling and humming but the tunes never turned into real songs. He watched Eduard hitting rocks off the edge of the large veranda with a stick. He would set the rock up and take a careful, well planned swing and then eject the rock off the cliff. If the rock took any course other than straight across the canyon (which it almost always did) Eduard let out a stream of curses and then repeated the process.<p>

Katara came up beside Eduard taking care not to get hit by his 'stick'.

"I hate golf," Eduard put down the stick. "Losing an eye has not relieved me of that wicked slice to the left."

"Sokka told me you have a bad heart," Katara said seriously as she stood next to him. "He told me it could kill you because you don't have the proper medication."

Eduard leaned on his thick wooden stick. "Indeed."

Katara grabbed the back of his shirt and pushed him forward – not much of a task considering Eduard's frailness. "_Have_ you considered those you would leave behind?"

Haru watched this with some bemusement. Sokka strode up to Katara as she held Eduard's arm. "Sorry Eduard. I had to tell my sister because she knows about these things."

"What can_ you _do?" Eduard asked in a manner that sounded on the very cusp of hopelessness.

Katara frog marched him to the inner parts of the temple. "I don't know." She said in a determined voice, "but I won't have someone I care about suffer without doing _something_."

Eduard remained quiet as Katara gently shoved him into his small room. "I thought you hated people from the Fire Nation. You haven't been very kind to Zuko."

"Zuko chased us down and tried to capture Aang. Azula nearly killed Aang!" Katara motioned for Eduard to sit down. "Now be quiet!" She waited for Eduard to sit down on his bed and then leaned in to listen to his chest. Eduard blushed and tried to feel less than awkward.

Katara stood up after a moment and looked at Eduard with a look of concern. "The Fire Nation killed my mother and I can't forgive Zuko for his torments."

"What?" Eduard looked at Katara and her eyes seemed to take a cold, blue look. "I didn't think you had any way to help me in any event."

Katara looked down at the ground. "I think I can." She looked to Eduard and put her arm around him. "Does a refined and cultured gentleman like yourself wish to act rudely?"

"Eh?" Eduard said quietly. "Excuse me?"

"You strike me as a well educated and at times artistic sort. You speak and act like someone who values such things as literature and poetry and as someone with courage and mental discipline." Katara said quietly. "I don't think someone like you would wish to be rude."

"No...I suppose not."

"I haven't known you for more than two days," Katara began, "and I heard you singing."

"Oh...sorry. Zuko hated my singing." Eduard fumbled his fingers.

"He missed out on a wonderful voice." Katara said as she smiled. "I heard you singing something this morning as you walked around this temple – and it sounded wonderful." She shook him gently with the arm she had around his waist.

"Mache dich mein Herze Rein," Eduard said. "The song is called '_Please, Oh Lord, Purify My Heart_' by_ Bach_."

"Now don't you think it would be rude if you passed away and left us without your singing?" Katara stood up and smiled. "Now rest here and I'll come back later and check on you."

* * *

><p>"<em>The Hall of Echoes<em>?" Eduard stood at the front of a large room that looked very usual to him. Had the Air Nomads wanted to carve out something with the name of _Hall of Echoes_, Eduard thought it could have used more pink stucco and Italian frescoes of cherubs. The Hall of Echoes formed a perfect square in all three dimensions. It had no windows but a square hole admitted light from the outside through a set of angled mirrors and gave the room a constantly changing color and mood in the light that entered. A single round door led into the chamber which opened up into a room of staggering dimensions better suited to industrial facilities. He ran his left hand up the wall and felt fine grooves in the wall with rough edges between the scoured rock. Eduard knew the function of this; textured concrete gave concert halls and arenas tuned sound characteristics.

"Eduard?" Katara's voice came from behind him. "I told you_ 'Katara' _that you had to _'Katara'_ rest." The room echoed like some kind of pop idol with an absurd amount of reverb in her voice track.

Eduard turned around and found Katara holding a pot of tea and a cup.

"My Gran Gran used to make foxglove tea and I helped her prepare her healing potions." Katara lowered her voice to manage the annoying echo from the room. "This place has lots of that herb growing in the forest around here and so I followed my Gran Gran's wisdom.

"Digitalis?" Eduard knew the drug and knew that it had existed in Europe as a heart remedy that killed as swiftly as it healed in unskilled hands. "I mean – thank you, but..."

"My gran gran knew how to make this tea for those with weak hearts," Katara explained patiently. "I know every detail and she entrusted me to the crushing and preparation of this tea." She handed the cup to Eduard. "You weigh as much as Toph and I made just enough to help you."

Eduard picked up the cup and could smell the odd bitter aroma of a herb. "I had taken the pure form of this drug and knew the plant but never smelled it or seen the tea." He drank the cup slowly and winced – he knew the reason the pharmaceutical companies packaged it in a gelatin coating for it tasted bitter and foul. He clenched his teeth and handed the cup back to Katara. "How convenient that we have heart medication growing around the temple."

Katara walked into the Hall of Echoes. "At one time the Air Nomads had a vast herb garden around these parts. They grew foxglove, sweet willow and any number of herbs for treating the ill." She waited for Eduard to quit clenching his teeth and follow her and her voice grew sadder. "When no one tended the herb gardens, they took root in the forest."

"All that is gone now." Eduard tried to get the bitter taste of the tea out of his mouth but given that he knew of no medication that tasted pleasing; he decided to accept that as a daily ritual. He walked around a room that to his eyes looked the size of the interiors of the buildings used to assemble Soyuz rockets. He could here his steps amplified by the room. Roman stadiums and theaters had the clever engineering to accomplish this feat and Eduard had visited several of them but the effect seemed no less amazing in this room. "Sozin did battle with the Air Nomads according to our history but such historians are idiots, dupes or liars. A battle leaves survivors. The vanquished leave subjugated and the victors rule the land and force the vanquished to live under their rule. I never wished to tread on the site of genocide."

"Genocide?" Katara followed Eduard around as he felt the walls and studied the light.

"The murder of an entire race or nation." Eduard leaned against the wall. "A genocide has two stages. First, you secretly murder a nation. Second, you revise the history to make them look like the evil in the world. You take the first step because any civilized people will object to such a crime. You take the second step to hide the crime scene in the hopes enough people will buy into the lie. Sozin followed the classic strategy for his evil and it never works. Judge Zuko as harshly as possible but he saw past the lie and decided to take action as a moral person. Others may see past it when they see places like these and see no weapons or even the hints of weapons. The Fire Nation uses repression and propaganda to control what people think but even I see signs that the good people of that nation like a spring pushed back to its limit are beginning to push back."

"What do you mean?" Katara followed after the distracted looking Eduard.

"Few people believe the lie anymore." Eduard smiled, "the ruling family and their military cadre has become a joke among the rank and file soldiers. No one can ignore the failures and the slow and incompetent war effort. I could not repeat much of what I heard about units in remote areas simply walking off, changing uniforms and merging into the Earth Kingdom but it has happened. Ba Sing Se may have fallen to the Fire Nation but so did Omashu and Omashu proved a hollow victory when all the people save the King left. What do you do with a dead city? Ruins are easy to rule but they produce very little of any use. Ba Sing Se has become a trap for the Fire Nation as it swallows soldiers, supplies and money. I give the Fire Nation a year before it collapses from economic ruin."

* * *

><p>Zuko and Aang returned the next day and Eduard spent most of his time alone, with his hands behind his back wandering the back alleys of the Air Temple. Eduard decided to quietly watch t Zuko and Aang running a series of fire bending forms as Zuko explained their meaning. Eduard knew the basic forms but he lacked the desire to use them to fight anyone. Zuko and Aang practiced on a wide, stone veranda ringed with lush ivies and filled with the brilliant sunlight at such high altitudes.<p>

Haru found Eduard standing like a soldier on the parade ground with his hands behind his back.

Haru cleared his throat, "just when I thought my dad was free, the Fire Nation took him prisoner."

"That fate has befallen a number of us," Eduard said without moving. "Haru – I believe?"

"I notice that you and Katara spend a lot of time together." Haru asked in a manner that struck Eduard as hinting at some kind of accusation. "You don't have a chance of keeping a powerful woman like that!" Haru began laughing.

Eduard looked to Haru with a look of incredulity. "I don't want to_ keep _her." Eduard went back to watching Zuko whip a flame rope around his waist. "They say free range water tribe girl pleases the most." Eduard had found his Gallic rudeness. "We're I come from, we call that sarcasm."

"You should treat people with more respect – Fire Nation scum."

"You should quit acting like a _lunkhead_." Eduard said calmly. "Katara has been helping me because my health has not been very good. Azula ripped out my eye and I have always had a frail heart." Eduard turned to Haru. "Can I go about my business?"

Haru grabbed Eduard shoulder with enough strength to cause Eduard to stumble. "I have my eye on you!" Haru let go and Eduard brushed off his shoulder and shoved him to one side.

Zuko and Aang walked up to both of them. Aang helped Eduard by brushing off his clothes but said nothing.

"Have you got a problem?" Zuko asked slowly.

Haru stood his ground. "Your Fire Nation friend can't keep his smart mouth shut. Why did you bring a weak, sick little man with you? We have to fight the Fire Nation and look after _a child_ too?"

Zuko thought for a moment. "I could let you two fight but you'd get hurt."

"Why bring him along?" Haru pointed rudely at Eduard.

"Ask Katara," Zuko smiled slyly.

Eduard bowed to Aang, "Thank you." He bowed to Zuko and turned his back on Haru.

Katara looked over the cauldron on the fire at Haru. "You what!" She motioned her hands to keep the rice from sticking to the bottom as the water boiled. "I can't believe _you _think I have a thing for Eduard!"

"You spend time with him." Haru said in an accusing tone.

Toph came out from one of the door pillars laughing as she approached Haru, "Eduard? He's gayer than a tree full of drunken lemurs! Leave Katara alone. She needs someone to talk to and so do I. Eduard's a kind sort with an odd way of looking at things but he's got an interesting view."

"How do you know he's gay?" Haru pried.

Toph laughed heartily. "Have you looked at him? No straight guy braids his own hair that well!"

* * *

><p>"Supper will be ready in an hour," Katara said as if to rid herself of Haru. "Go find some place and practice some earth bending and give yourself some time to get things in perspective."<p>

Haru left without a word and trudged off to the _Hall of Echoes_. He found Eduard singing in a full tenor voice in the hall and making grand gestures. Eduard had every intention of making use of the room's acoustics to belt out Bach fugues and experiment with weird echo effects. Haru felt a low pedal note wash over his feet. Eduard had somehow managed to find a way to use the room to not only echo his voice but bend it's pitch. Eduard paused and began a to work on somehow singing all the parts of the _Third Movement of Brandenburg Concerto Number Four_. The music stopped.

"Can I help you?" Eduard turned around. "Haru?"

Haru walked forward. "Would you know the fate of my father?" He had begun by speaking loudly but the echo in the room made his voice unintelligible. Something about the dapper Eduard suggested to Haru of a kind of Fire Nation arrogance his recent experience had made him come to despise.

"No..." Eduard said cautiously. "The Fire Nation had three kind of prisoners. The first kind were criminals, murders and sociopaths without bending. Without fire bending as a useful skill they went to one group of prisons. The second kind were those who spoke out against the regime or, like me, were suspected of treachery. These political prisoners went into the gulags or were executed. Your father sounds like a prisoner of war and probably went into a POW camp to do labor." Eduard sounded apologetic. "The Fire Nation shrouds its prisons in a cloak of secrecy. I had the job of tracking supplies for the Fire Nation government – you have the guy who ordered ink, paper and pencils among other things."

"What has this got to do with my father?" Haro asked impatiently as he paced the room.

Eduard paced the room with Haru. "I have no answers. You loved your father, I loved my father and we both miss them in our lives. My father worked as a teacher and we enjoyed many things like hiking, we enjoyed hockey and we enjoyed building model airplanes. I don't expect you to understand any of this but we both miss our fathers." Eduard made a cross on his chest. "I wish I could tell my parents I'm still alive."

"What did your father do?"

"My father teaches music and gym classes but he came from Canada and when he was young he played hockey in college." Eduard answered seriously.

"Do you miss him?"

Eduard looked into the distance, "I miss a great many people. I left my friends and my world and found myself here. The hope I have is that somehow this will turn out as it should."

* * *

><p>Sokka knocked on the doorway of Eduard's room. "You don't look very happy"<p>

"I was never suited for a life of _roughing it_." Eduard lay on his bed and groaned as various bugs circled the lantern on the stand next to his bed. "I notice the Air Nomads were not fond of material comforts and they took a rather low tech approach to life." Eduard sat up on his bed. "They wished to live in harmony with nature and all of those good things that lead a people to widely adopt the composing toilet and the bucket based shower." Eduard looked carefully to Sokka. "Well what can I do for you?"

"Did you ever hear of a place called _The Boiling Rock_?"

"The Fire Nation maximum security prison?" Eduard scratched his forehead above his left eye. "I knew of it as one of the permanent places to imprison particularly escape prone enemies of the state and those POWs who kept trying to escape from other facilities." Eduard stood up and waved a flurry of annoying gnats out of his path. "Why have you suddenly developed an unhealthy interest in this place?"

"No reason," Sokka lied, "Zuko said we crossed over it on our way here."

"I need to take a walk." Eduard motioned for Sokka to follow him. "I knew of most of these places by name. The Boiling Rock is supposed to be a prison built on an island of rock in the middle of a volcanic lake on some island somewhere. They chose that place because it's remote and if you buy into the propaganda – escape proof."

Sokka followed Eduard down the dark hallway. "An escape proof prison?

"A specialty of the Fire Nation." Eduard walked out into the late evening moonlight. "Earth benders will try and tunnel under prison walls while water benders are forever trying to crush the prison walls with a tsunami out and fire benders set fire to the insides of their cells. I imagine the decision to build a prison on a rock in the middle of a volcanic lake surrounded by ocean makes sense if your idea of good sense involves making a prison no one can escape."

"I think the Fire Nation may have taken my father there," Sokka followed Eduard along the veranda past Appa.

Eduard gave Appa a pat on the head in greeting. "_Escape proof_ works both ways." Eduard reminded Sokka. "You can't turn up at the main guard house and state your intent to visit your father. They will only capture you and imprison you and you'll gain nothing. Zuko may know more about the Fire Nation prison system but chances are his information would be out of date or erroneous. The Fire Nation guards its secrets very well and you could end up blundering in a trap."

Sokka patted Eduard on his back, "not to worry."

Eduard bowed to Sokka and continued on his evening walk as he hummed a gentle tune.

* * *

><p>"I don't mind being lied to! Lord knows that with Azula I have grown accustomed to them." Eduard looked cross and nervously scratched his forehead as he leaned against the back wall of what he had come to call <em>The Narthex<em>. "Get meat, gone fishing?" Eduard shook his head, "an incompetent lie has an added kind of insult to it because it says – we think you're as dumb as a post and not worth the time to create a workable falsehood."

"What do you mean?" Katara asked as Aang began to do his fire bending homework on a nearby veranda.

"Last night, your brother came to see me with a whole bunch of questions about a prison called _The Boiling Rock_." Eduard handed Katara the note. "He thinks the Fire Nation may have taken your father there. I told him what I knew which wasn't much given that those kinds of facilities are shrouded in secrecy. I find it an odd coincidence that Sokka picked my brain about this place and then took off with Zuko in the war balloon. At least I assume they did given that Appa and Momo are still here."

Aang quit his fire bending exercises right in the middle of a set of hot squats. "Can we catch up with them and stop them?"

"I need to go find confirmation for my hypothesis," Eduard turned on his heels. "I'm going topside and check on the war balloon. If they took that then we can say it's a good bet they have decided to plan _The Great Escape_. If they left on foot and took some of the kit from our camp; then maybe they went out hunting or fishing."

"Can I come up and see?" Aang had already come up with ways to beat his homework but Eduard agreed. "I need to complain to you about how hard you made it to get out of this place. Did you ever have a great air nomad named Wayne Gretzky? That one looks a lot like The Great One." Eduard and Aang climbed along the narrow stairwell into the ear of that statue.

"Why can't you teach me fire bending?" Aang asked as Eduard made a flame in the palm of his hand to illuminate the spiral stone passageway.

Eduard looked at Aang, "I lack the combat experience of Zuko or his martial arts prowess. I can fire bend because Azula taught me a few basics but I lack power and am a hopeless poor aim."

Aang looked down at the steps. "I have to face Fire Lord Ozai and defeat him but I can't kill him."

"Who said you had to kill him?" Eduard asked as he pushed away the ivy from the surface entrance.

"Everyone expects me to kill him," Aang followed Eduard out to the place where the war balloon had stood and now was gone. "Can I kill another human being?"

Eduard paced around the flattened grass where the war balloon had once been moored. "When I was a kid of about six, my mom and I took a trip to a park and in the middle of that park; they had geese you could feed. One of them attacked me and traumatized me but even to this day I couldn't imagine killing a goose. I'm the wrong person to ask." Eduard scuffed the ground where the balloon had been moored and sighed. "That about settles the case against Sokka and Zuko."

Aang looked up into the sky, "so what now?"

"I had heard of _The Boiling Rock_," Eduard pushed a badger frog out of his path with his toe and the easy going amphibian hopped away. "Sokka had lots of questions for me and wanted to know if I knew its location but no one of the military or palace knobs who held a position above me ever told me. Zuko must have known how to find it and gone with Sokka spring his father."

"Can't we take Appa and go searching?"

"We could," Eduard pushed aside the ivy to enter the tunnel, "but let me tall you what we're up against. We have about five million square kilometers of ocean between this place and the Fire Nation and no one has a clue where to begin."

Aang scratched the side of the stone with his fingers and dust came down from the walls. Eduard's flame made the shadows look frightening and Aang shivered as he thought about the old souls that had inhabited the temple in the past. With Zuko and Sokka missing, Aang wondered to himself what he might have to do if he had to find another fire bending master. Eduard emerged out of the ear of the statue and found Katara waiting for them with her arms crossed.

"Did they take the war balloon?" She asked anxiously.

"Gone!" Eduard said with frustration in his voice. "We have no way to find them and no way to rescue them." Eduard looked over the daintily carved rail into the mists of the canyon below. "We have Appa, a promise of a fish dinner and no clue where to look."

"They could succeed," Aang said optimistically.

Eduard nodded. "Zuko is brash and Sokka careless. They have set out to sneak into a prison in a bright red balloon. Of course Fire Nation guards don't have a reputation for thinking on their feet. The soldiers who_ can't_ beat their substance abuse issues or get trapped in the tires on the obstacle course because they're morbidly obese get that job." Eduard walked slowly with Katara and Aang and wondered why he had to supply all the difficult answers. "We can hope that Sokka and Zuko arrive during happy hour for the guards."

"When's happy hour?" Aang asked.

"Between midnight and noon in the morning and one and midnight in the afternoon," Eduard answered. "With one hour to eat lunch, read porno and puke."

"What about sleep?" Katara asked.

"Depends on when a guard passes out." Eduard snickered. He knew he hardly exaggerated the situation with prisons since he had spent time in one. A Fire Nation prison operated on the same principle as a nuclear waste dump. They hoped to stuff dangerous things like murderers or independent thinkers in a containment facility and keep them from leeching back out into society. No one recruited for the job wanted it but had to take it as a part of a plea bargain or because they'd wind up dead on the battlefield and the good soldiers would forever keep stumbling over their corpse. Like nuclear containment; the prisons seldom worked completely and people did leak out. The Fire Nation took a rather crude accounting approach to the problem and simply arrested more people so those with real power didn't notice anything amiss. The Fire Nation equivalent of the terrorists getting their hands on nuclear waste consisted of serial killers like_ Combustion Man _or_ Qui Fong the Lopper of Heads_ having careers that spanned decades. The warden had a clue about what went on and who had to do what tasks and which prisoners were in his charge. The rest of the lot had the social composition of a twelve step meeting and seldom had any idea what to do.

* * *

><p>"You set a bush on fire," Aang watched a dry bush burn in the hot sun.<p>

Eduard slowly looked over to Aang. "That is the third one I have reduced to ashes." Eduard scratched his head. "I prefer fighting the mighty and clever bush since it in no way can harm me."

"That one had thorns." Aang said.

Eduard listened for a moment, "wasn't there something you should do when a badger frog croaked?"

"I didn't hear a badger frog," Aang said apologetically.

"According to Zuko you have to do some kind of fire bending excercize each time a badger frog croaks. I think he meant when one makes a noise which is frequent as opposed to when one dies which is somewhat less frequent. Ribbit!" Eduard said as he walked down off the wide veranda and decided to seek shade behind the relative cover of the louvered doors that provided cover for their camp. He walked past Appa and gave him a friendly pat. Momo had taken Eduard for a human with a rather nervous disposition and made sure that the odd braided man could see him clearly as he approached and clambered up him to reach his shoulder. Eduard walked through the louvered doors that sheltered the camp where most of the group stayed and found Katara beginning the preparations for the evening dinner.

Katara smiled as she stirred the large pot. "Momo likes you." She said in casual greeting as Eduard paced the room nervously. "You look unhappy."

Eduard wrung his hands in frustration, "I tried to help Aang with his fire bending but I ended up killing three bushes."

"Can I check your eye?" Katara approached Eduard.

Eduard pulled down the eye patch, "disgusting – isn't it?"

Katara looked in the eye socket for a few moments. "You're healing nicely."

Toph stomped in the room and looked at Eduard. "You two need a moment?" She laughed as she walked forward and nudged Eduard with her elbow. "I would be mad as hell if someone mutilated me for no reason. How come you don't get mad?"

"What do you mean?" Eduard looked at Toph, "I'm mad as hell at Azula and that she – well – nevermind. I can't do anything about it now." Eduard bowed to Katara. "I need to rest before supper and I herded a bunch of badger frogs near the place where Aang works out. I have done my job in the service of my duty." He left the room but Toph decided to follow him.

"You need to talk?" Toph asked gently as she followed Eduard down the long stone hall.

Eduard bumped into the door jamb as he entered his room. "I need to rest right now. My day began when the two idiots left on the war balloon to break into a prison. Zuko leaves Aang without a trainer and as a fire bender I leave much to be desired unless you have weeding to do." Eduard took a look out of the open window. "To answer your question, I'm mad as hell at all of this but what can I do? Whining does no good. Eyes don't grow back. I spent weeks in prison believing I would die in some horrible testament to the imagination and sheer sadism of Princess Azula. Here I am and it looks like here I'll stay." Eduard looked at Toph who sat on the edge of the bed. "There you go." Eduard shrugged. "I have come to accept that I'm an accidental actor your lives."

* * *

><p>Aang found Eduard in<em> The Hall of Echoes<em> singing scales in his characteristic tenor voice.

"Eduard?" Aang said quietly.

Eduard continued singing.

"Eduard!" Aang called out from the entrance of the great room.

"Uh?" Eduard turned around, "yes?"

"I need a break," Aang explained, "and you haven't taken a ride on Appa yet so lets go."

Eduard had a rather dubious look on his face, "I would love nothing better than to help you dodge your homework but I have this thing about flying on the back on a six legged animal with the aerodynamics of a cinder block."

"Katara says you've been moping around for the better part of two days and nothing cheers up a sad person than a ride on a sky bison." Aang held his glider over his shoulder as he left The Hall of Echoes with Eduard trying to keep from getting struck in the head by the back end of Aang's glider. They found Appa grazing on hay in the mid morning sunshine.

Eduard held back. "I don't know about this, Aang. What if Appa doesn't like me?"

"Appa likes everyone!" Aang leaped onto the neck of the huge beast and grabbed the reins. "Take a seat in the saddle."

Eduard wondered how to climb up a furry monster that looked like something rejected by natures as lacking in any form the ability to fly. Eduard wondered as he grabbed tufts of fur when the great beast with an arrow on his head would lose his temper and decide to bite him in two. At the same time, Eduard thought having a sky bison bite him in two would solve some of the major pressing problems in his life. Eduard clambered into the saddle and wondered if this entire adventure would end up like a failed Soviet rocket experiment – with his good and plenty scattered over some part of the world no one cared about.

"Do you have seat belts?" Eduard asked as he grabbed the wooden sides of the saddle and held on.

"No?" Aang said happily. "Don't need 'em."

"Should I make a note of that for the board of inquiry?"

"Yip! Yip!" The reins snapped gently.

Eduard felt the huge beast rise off the rock platform without much of a feeling of acceleration. Appa slid slowly forward and began to pick up speed. The sensation reminded Eduard of film shots off an aircraft carrier deck since Appa sped up much more quickly than he had expected and the air temple fell away. The great monster flew past the lip of the canyon and Eduard had the first view of the great rift valley that divided the Island of the Western Air Temple in two. As far as what Eduard knew about how things flew, it became quite obvious that wings were a baroque accessory in this world. Appa had no trouble flying in great loops as Aang dove Appa and flew him just over the tall trees of the jungle.

"I feel free and alive when I can fly with Appa!" Aang turned back and told Eduard.

"I feel something akin to my stomach contents attempting a food escape." Eduard had a nervous stomach but had to admit the air rushing past him and the sight of the constantly changing pattern of trees and clearings made for a thrill. His ears popped as Appa rose back into the air. "I love this! All we need now is a place to go. How far to Ireland?"

"What?" Aang yelled back. "Ireland?"

Eduard had to shout to make his point. "Of course! Russia has a large air force."

"Why Ireland?" Aang shouted back.

"They drink lots so if we could figure out how to pull into Sligo airport and then find a nice pub for a chicken pot pie and a beer – or several." Eduard watched a grazing heard of strange two legged furry birds running across a clearing and then resumed his diatribe. "The Irish have become used to things looking not quite exactly as they should and they drink lots. If we showed up in Sligo with a flying bison; some of the locals would notice, others wouldn't care about it and the outside world would take none of it seriously. I could have a pub dinner except I have no money – well it's a nice day."

"Are you Irish?" Aang flew Appa in a gentle curve heading north.

"Bite your tongue." Eduard laughed. "Where are we heading on this thing?"

Aang turned around and smiled. "Just touring."

Eduard figured the Western Air Temple Island ranked as a good sized Madagascar sized island with a tropical climate that made for many interesting sights as he soared above the jungle and watched lemurs mingle with monkeys and other primates too odd to name filling the warm upper reaches of the canopy. Aang flew the great sky bison down into the vast gash that divided the island in two. If plate tectonics worked in the same manner as on his world, at some point the Western Air Temple would reside on ocean front property as it sailed east and the other half of the island made its way west.

Appa landed as softly as he had taken off and didn't even raise a cloud of dust. Eduard could smell rice cooking and realized he had eaten a chicken pot pie in many months and wondered if he would ever find his way to a pub where the bartender spoke with a thick accent Eduard would have to shout over and had no idea how to cook rice or tubers for that matter.

Eduard climbed off the saddle and steadied himself as if drunk. "We could make a fortune selling tourists the sky bison safari package." He leaned against Appa as Aang landed next to him twirling his glider. "When the War ends of course."

"If the War ends," Aang strode along the old stone floor of the veranda.

Eduard had no reason to doubt that the salvation of the world hung on the young boy's shoulders and wondered if he had behaved without the courage his maturity demanded. "You have picked up fire bending very quickly and what I see rivals Zuko."

"If I only needed that." Aang walked beside Eduard. Aang liked the calm and somewhat detached approach that Eduard took to like – in a way like Monk Gyatsu – in another way Eduard appeared as if he didn't take the world seriously. They both walked into the shade of an overhanging stone roof. "I'll have to face a powerful and cruel fire bender who believes in the rule that might is right and enjoys trampling the weak."

"As I see it," Eduard began slowly as he brushed his clothes off – something Katara called 'preening'. "You have an advantage over the Fire Lord. He's a mad power hungry megalomaniac. His daughter shares the same delusion and will stop at nothing to pursue power. You have the advantage in that you are sane."

* * *

><p>"Zuko and Sokka!" Eduard heard a shout of relief from Katara ring out over the dull sounds of insects buzzing over the lantern in his room. The twilight cast a nice blue glow through the windows and Eduard had his cup of medicinal tea beside him as he tried to let his mind wander. He grabbed his cup and downed it in one gulp and make it to the front of the air temple to see why the commotion had broken out.<p>

Eduard saw a huge air ship and slunk back into the shadow behind the fire. He saw Sokka and Zuko disembark off the air ship along with a tall man man who looked fire nation, a young girl with a button nose and red hair and then a man with long hair and a thick beard. Sokka had the uniform of a prison guard (Eduard knew _that_ uniform) but all the rest had prison garb. Eduard slowly walked into the light.

"A Fire Nation airship?" Eduard remarked. "They wouldn't have given that up easily."

Sokka wrapped his arm around Eduard's neck. "They didn't even know we took it!" Sokka rubbed Eduard's head. "We escaped _The Boiling Rock_."

"Congratulations," Eduard said. "We had a dead pool. I had my money on 'blown out of the air by a catapult'. Aang bet on you two boiling to death in the volcanic lake after the balloon crashed."

"Dad!" Sokka shouted enthusiastically. "Meet Eduard." Sokka pushed Eduard toward the beared man in prison garb. "He came from a Fire Nation prison.

Eduard bowed. "Eduard Aino Tubin."

"Hakoda of the Water Tribe." The man bowed in return.

"How did the Avatar do?" Zuko asked Eduard as he greeted his fire bending friend "Did he do his homework?"

"I think you'll find he's improved considerably," Eduard smiled briefly. "You guys captured a Fire Nation airship?" Eduard tilted his head in curiosity. "They left it unguarded?" The very idea that a secret Fire Nation airship would be left unguarded struck Eduard as odd.

"My sister Azula left it unguarded." Zuko cracked a fine smile as he enjoyed the fine irony in it. "When will you send her the bill?"

This struck Eduard as even odder but Azula's arrogance had gone beyond even his ability to anticipate. She had come to think of herself as incapable of error. He didn't let this distract him from the very strong desire to explore the airship and work out how the thing worked.

* * *

><p>The next day Eduard woke up and prepared himself for a full day of exploring the Fire Nation airship. He had heard rumors of a project to build a military airship but had no idea the Fire Nation engineers had made it work. They had failed brilliantly with <em>The Drill<em>, making a pistol, making gas light that didn't have that hideous red glow and air conditioning. Eduard had spent a summer in the Fire Nation palace wondering if the windows in his office opened to allow fresh air in or to prevent his hardwood desk from a undergoing a catastrophic meltdown. Azula explained to him that fire benders enjoyed the heat so he requisitioned a fan. This didn't make him any more comfortable but kept his desk from igniting.

He boarded the airship in the spirit of someone from a modern country that wished the thing tried to look less ferocious with the dragon on the front and the murky dark red linen covering and more like something with safety systems. He walked up the ramp into the ship as it creaked under his step.

"In the event of an emergency, death is certain." Eduard whispered to himself as he climbed up the steps to the next level. Thin shafts of daylight came through the windows and provided a bright light with dark, deep shadows. Eduard felt like he was about to be mugged. "Remember the _Hindenburg_. Oh the humanity."

"Hey Eddy!" Sokka yelled as a greeting from the base of the steps.

"Augh!" Eduard screamed. "Sokka!"

Sokka joined Eduard at the top of the stairs. "We learned a lot from this airship. They use hydrogen to keep it in the air and power it with coal."

Eduard and Sokka emerged into the control deck and Eduard began inspecting the dials, controls, examining the maps and hoping he would never have to fly in a hydrogen filled gas bag fired by a coal engine. Eduard knew hydrogen behaved well enough when bonded to oxygen to make water but when let to roam free did nasty things like blow up airships, take out college science labs, took a hundred million dollar oil refinery and reduce it to eighty cents of bulk plumbing and scrap and as a final encore – flatten power plants.

"Do you want to go for a ride?" Sokka asked Eduard. "We're going to hide the airship in case me need it later so I'm going to fly it to a nearby clearing."

"Would the answer 'no' be appropriate here?" Eduard asked as Sokka began fingering a set of eight red buttons and the engines roared to life. "Do you think Azula might come after us?" Eduard's voice shook a bit as the ship began to rise slowly. Eduard felt a start as the door at the bottom of the gondola clanged shut.


	4. Chapter 4

**The Tourists Guide to the Realm of the Avatar**

**(The Voyage of Eduard)**

**Chapter 4**

"I'm sorry Zuko," Eduard lay back on his bed which consisted of a blanket and a slab of rock. Eduard realized fairly early in his stay at the Western Air Temple that he would make a completely unhappy and grumpy air nomad. Zuko did little to improve the mood as the prince had his own worries. "I didn't know Mai very well but she sounds like a decent sort. I have been Azula's prisoner." Eduard pointed at his missing eye for effect.

Zuko paced the room nervously. "I know what happened to you and so I've got a good reason to worry."

"Not all things turn out badly," Eduard sat up on his bed. He knew this would offer little consolation to the troubled prince but something in his nature obliged him to give out useless advice in hopes that somehow Zuko could make use of it.

Katara showed up with her daily dose of warm foxglove tea. "I'll just set this down." Katara scowled at Zuko and left the room.

Zuko waited for a moment. "She treats me like crap. She hates me and I don't know what to say." He threw up his hands in frustration. "I wish I could earn her respect."

Eduard gazed at Zuko. "_I've_ come to know you as well as anyone knows a moody, insecure, traumatized prince with an obsessive compulsive nature. I have never felt even the tiniest need to show you respect and you have never even had the tiniest interest in my opinions."

Zuko huffed dismissively. "You've given me a chance to acquire self discipline and control. We end up spending time together and it takes all my discipline to keep from choking you."

"When I look at the bleak, ugly, out of the way hellholes we've visited," Eduard spoke softly, "I've not yet had the chance to visit some hideous place with too many bugs or inconvenient locations, trees that make me break out in a rash or where the temperature soars to where the fillings in my teeth start melting that hasn't been made worse by spending time with you. Katara may have decided to save on effort and just not try to get to know you."

"What does that have to do with anything!"

"Nothing, just venting. Why do you care what Katara thinks? You came with a mission to help the Avatar master fire bending so he can challenge and defeat your father." Eduard picked up his cup of medicinal tea. "I spent time camping with you and I will admit to having the urge to bash your head in with a rock." Eduard blew on his tea and sipped it. "You need to give her time to become used to the idea of the good Prince Zuko and come to accept you for the vastly irritating but well intentioned ass that you are."

"Thanks..." Zuko said dryly. He sat on Eduard's bed and decided to change the topic. This proved difficult with Eduard since the man hated his life, hated living in the Western Air Temple and wanted everyone to know.

"Do you think my sister will come for revenge?" Zuko asked as he lay back on Eduard's bed. "We know she's going to want revenge for the theft of her airship and her loss at_ The Boiling Rock_."

"I would bet that Azula has every airship at her command hunting us down," Eduard tented his fingers. "Do you think we should leave this place?"

Zuko put his hands behind his head. "All she has to do is draw a straight line from The Boiling Rock and she'll find us."

"I wouldn't miss this place." Eduard crushed a cockroach that had done nothing but wander out of the danker spaces of the temple with the bottom of his tea cup. "I can think of fifty thousand better places to wind up and that's just the Northern Hemisphere. Nature can't seem to find a civilized level of bugs. I saw a weird fluorescent green caterpillar with yellow and white stripes the length of my hand eating a bush. I found that unsettling."

* * *

><p>Eduard had finished readying himself for the morning when the wall facing outside exploded. Eduard grabbed his knapsack and watched two ton chunks of limestone fall into the chasm below. A series of sharp concussions shook the temple and Eduard beat a hasty retreat from his room. He fell through a hole in the floor and tumbled out of the air temple and landed on the top of an exceedingly large Fire Nation airship. He looked at the red linen for a moment and then slid down the side until a cable stopped his fall by catching him in the crotch. Eduard grunted and held on to the cable as his eyes filled with water.<p>

A loud crack came from above and the rest of Eduard's room exploded into fragments. The fiercest blows fell on the veranda with the pivoting blue doors where most of the gang slept. The cable snapped under Eduard's weight and he fell past startled Fire Nation gunners as they lobbed bombs at the temple.

"Crap! Son of a bitch!" Eduard lost his grip and fell about ten feet and landed on a rock. He lay there winded and sore but found it amazing that he still had his knapsack. He felt a flash of heat and stones pelted him as a bomb went off. Eduard ran into the maze of tunnels behind the front facing of one of the upside down stone covered pagodas. A concussion knocked Eduard down and the hallway filled with dust. Eduard heard his ears ringing and could feel blood trickling down his head.

"On days like this, I could roll over and die," Eduard stumbled into _The Hall of Echoes_, "but I don't want to give Azula the satisfaction of killing me."

If bombs made loud noises when they detonated in open spaces, they sounded horrific in The Hall of Echoes. Eduard covered his ears and wondered if he would die on the rock with no eardrums. After a few moments, the bombing stopped and Eduard found himself in a strange silent room with the stone dust drifting slowly in the light from the skylight. Eduard sat on the ground and wondered what to do next.

"Dear Eduard," A familiar voice came from the hallway. Azula emerged from the hallway with her hair down and arms crossed. "The Avatar left with my brother on the sky bison."

"What!" Eduard yelled and pointed at his ears.

"The Avatar has left you here!" Azula yelled back.

"Huh?" Eduard made a mental effort to still the ringing in his ears. "The man a the bar did what!"

"The Avatar and his friends have left you here!" Azula yelled and struck a fierce fighting pose. "They have abandoned you to your fate!"

Eduard raised his hand. "I'll catch the next sky bison out of here."

"You have taken to wear an eye patch." Azula paced around Eduard like an evil cat waiting to pounce. "I had to take your eye out, I had to keep you in line and I was right about you – you left with my pathetic brother and joined the Avatar. I had expected you to die given that you don't have your heart medication but I imagine that Water Tribe witch has ways to keep you alive."

"You did me a favor," Eduard pointed at his eye patch, "after all I have a convenient place to keep my keys – beats hiding them under a mat." Eduard's odd humor seldom struck Azula as funny and her face showed not a trace of emotion.

"You can't imagine how it hurt me to have you sentenced to death." Azula watched Eduard carefully. "I like you and you have talents." She held a pink throwing knife in her hand. "I have no use for my brother or my funny uncle."

Eduard scratched his temple. "You look like crap. You usually take great pride in your appearance – but your hair is a mess..."

Shut up!" Azula snapped. She sank into the floor and screamed.

Toph lifted a rock and held it over her head. "You alright Eduard? Lets go before the soldiers show up."

"Thanks!" Eduard followed Toph into a tunnel and Azula watched it closed. The two ton boulder over her head fell to one side with a thump.

"I couldn't leave you with the scary lady," Toph guided Eduard by the hand. "It'll take them a while to pry her out and that'll buy us time to escape."

* * *

><p>Katara had a spool of some kind of sinew she used to stitch up Eduard's head which had a four inch long gash running across his forehead. Eduard looked at the blue sky and fluffy white clouds and hoped they would soothe his nerves as the needle dug in – they utterly failed.<p>

"Ow!" Eduard yelped. "Chicks dig scars – ouch!" Katara had no local anesthetic and Eduard could feel her sewing his gashed forehead up with seal sinew and a needle made of bone. "Will my -ow! - ears end up on the same place on my head?"

Katara didn't let Eduard's squirming deter her from her task. Suki grabbed Eduard's head to hold it steady so nothing unfortunate happened. She had visions of the unlucky and squirming Eduard having his eyebrows sewn together.

"I feel like an – ouch!" Eduard yelped as Katara finished the last stitch. "I know what my stuffed toys went through when my mom fixed them."

"You won't have a scar and so chicks won't dig you." Suki snickered.

Katara smiled pleasantly as she finished knitting Eduard's battered scalp together and sewed up the last stitch.

"They never did." Eduard sat up and let his headache slowly subside and sat next to Zuko. "Quit looking at me like that!" Eduard told Zuko. "I'm a sissy! If you could stay calm while a water tribe girl stuck needles in your forehead and sewed you up with seal guts – more power to you."

"I don't think your a sissy," Zuko said unhappily. "A colossal complainer and grumbler but not a sissy."

"Azula says hi." Eduard told Zuko as he sulked in the back of Appa's saddle. Eduard watched a kangaroo like animal hopping along the grassland below him. The Western Air Temple Island reminded Eduard of what he had seen of Madagascar on nature documentaries and explained why he had never had any burning desire to visit there. A half hour had passed but Eduard and the others still kept checking to see if they had any airships pursuing them but they had gotten away cleanly. Nothing except a few vultures dining on a large carcass flew in the skies.

"She'll hunt us down like dogs." Zuko growled. "We're not safe anywhere."

Eduard looked down at the grassland below him, "Doesn't anyone live on this rock? Half a million square kilometers of nothing but jungle, scary bugs and no human habitation." Eduard had a European sense of scale which meant he found vast tracts of land with no buildings or landmarks utterly boring and considered Denmark a vast track of land. "A huge waste of space if you ask me."

"We'll be crossing the coast soon," Zuko said as an attempt to rid himself of the company of Eduard. "If you find this boring then wait until you see the open ocean."

Eduard looked around the saddle, "this thing lacks a lavatory."

"Nature is your lavatory," Zuko yawned.

"Ew! I can exercise some discipline." Eduard looked down at the long breathtaking sweeping grassland flow below him.

"We'll take a bathroom break as soon as we're safe." Katara said comfortingly.

"What about stopovers at a nice regional airport?" Eduard held out few hopes for that as they flew over a coastal mangrove swamp and felt the humidity waft off the ground. Appa flew over the mass of forest full of caymans, pythons and other nice things and soon headed out over the tropical blue ocean. Eduard grimaced as the wet swamp smell hit his nostrils.

* * *

><p>The gang arrived at some unnamed island with a few sparse trees that had nothing to recommend it as a tourist destination. It may have belonged to the Fire Nation or the Earth Kingdom or consisted of a twenty or thirty square kilometers of grass and rock where some migratory bird could leave a few droppings. Eduard dubbed it <em>'Crap Island with a Tree'<em> and immediately set about to complain about it. His forehead ached from the cut he had received from falling rock and he felt he had the right to complain. Eduard had come to hate isolated and out of the way places and decided that he would gladly trade the sensation of having a mugger slug him in the gut and make off with his wallet than camp.

"I claim this island in the name of the European Union and the Nation of France!" Eduard spread out his arms as the gang set up camp. "We need a place to put lepers or test biological warfare agents. We can safely kill monkeys with small pox and no one will notice or care. Why do we always end up holed up in the sort of places that have a very good reason for not having tourists?"

"Does everyone from your world complain as much as you?" Zuko asked as he walked with Eduard along the coast of the small island.

"My country has a special talent for it, I will confess." Eduard answered back casually. "As we prepare the Avatar for the coming battle, I know we have to run from the Fire Lord and your sister but I miss many of the comforts of a civilized life. I miss hot running water, food that isn't rice." Eduard paused as a gull screamed as it flew over. "I miss living a life where I don't have to worry about someone killing me either because they hate me or because they explode for no properly explained reason and take me out with Combustion Man fragments."

"You could be dead," Zuko answered back. "My sister has plans to kill both of us and nearly succeeded."

"I have the stitches in the head to prove it."

"I can't make friends with Katara." Zuko changed the topic as soon as he was certain he was out of earshot. "She treats me like scum and I don't know how to talk to her."

Eduard scowled at Zuko. "She sewed my head together with _a bone needle and seal guts!_ Since I get along fine with her – man - I'd hate to see what she'd do to someone she really hated. You have to help the Avatar and end this War because I want a warm bath, a shave and a steak!" Eduard felt that special kind of frustration he had when he had to spend his time with Zuko in isolation. Eduard liked Zuko as a person but not as a friend and imagined Zuko would be the first one shoved out the airlock if they had to travel on a long interplanetary mission to the planet Mars. "Why not talk to the girl? I can offer my services as a mediator if you want but the first thing you ought to do is talk to her."

Sokka came up from the opposite direction and had in his hand a bunch of roses. He whistled a happy tune and looked pleased with himself. "Hey guys!"

"Where did you find roses on this crap hole!" Eduard asked in his direct way. "Flowers on this dump?"

"It wasn't easy. Suki and I have a special romantic night planned." Sokka smiled. "I give you two a rose out of respect for our Fire Nation allies?"

Sokka walked off and Eduard looked down at the rose. "I think Sokka's a little off. Not off as in nuts but maybe like people who like to collect knitted bobble hats are a little off." Eduard sniffed the rose. "Or my grade ten math teacher was a little off."

"You never say anything helpful," Zuko made his usual complaint. "I can't seem to get Katara to respect me."

"Take Katara a few roses to show your respect?" Eduard held out a rose to Zuko. "Maybe give her a peace offering?"

"No!" Zuko exclaimed. "What if she thinks I'm hitting on her!"

"Right...Mai would kill you." Eduard turned around to head back to camp and held his rose up to his nose. "Can't Fire Nation Princes have more than one wife or a mistress or hookers?"

"No!"

Eduard began to walk slowly to the camp. "I hardly see the point of being a prince then."

* * *

><p>"Why is it that when we camp, I always end up sharing a tent with you?" Eduard lay on a blue sleeping bag looking up at the stern shadows cast by an oil lamp hung next to him. He didn't approve of the stone tent Toph had made for them as it didn't have a great deal of room and this meant sharing his private space with the sulking prince Zuko. "Hell is an eternity locked in a room with your friends. I find it amazing how you can get on my nerves in so short a time and with such little effort."<p>

"I see them sitting around the fire and laughing," Zuko looked out of the open front of the tent. "Why don't we try and join in?"  
>Eduard found Zuko's rear in perfect line with his foot and kicked him out the door. "You go ahead, I'll catch up." Eduard had his daily tea and saw no reason to socialize after riding a thousand clicks on the back of a sky bison without resort to a bathroom break. He had stitches in his forehead, a headache and Zuko had more than gotten on his nerves. He lay back and sighed and held the rose in his hands. He had begun drifting off into that pleasant state of mind between relaxation and sleep and began to look back on the events of the day. Fate must have spared him for some reason as nothing he had encountered had killed him. Azula had tried twice. She failed in the first try since he had escaped with Zuko on the war balloon. He had met her in the cave that morning and he knew that she had intended to kill him and she would have finished him off with ease if Toph had not shown up to reunite him with the team. He let his mind wander in a pleasant way as he imagined what his Ember Island house could become once the War had ended and he had the time to put some effort into making a real home.<p>

Zuko scrambled back in the shelter and sat on his sleeping bag. "I tried to talk to Katara and she reminded me of a few things. I betrayed her and the Avatar and he nearly died."

Eduard kept his eyes closed and held onto the rose. "Have you considered talking to those who know her better than me? Sokka's her brother?"

"As a fellow fire bender; I feel I can relate to you," Zuko said sadly, "and I haven't done anything really awful to you."

"Thanks. Glad you haven't done anything awful to me." Eduard said halfheartedly. "You could go talk to Sokka – he may help." Eduard made a show of his indifference.

Zuko stood up and looked at Eduard with his eye patch, the sutures in the forehead. "Right..." Zuko turned away and Eduard let the sutures in his head amplify his headache as he closed his eyes and began to relax once again.

"Knock, knock!" Eduard heard the voice of Suki at the front door. "Zuko is talking to Sokka. Do you have an idea what they could be discussing?"

Eduard propped himself up on his arms and winced in pain, "Zuko wants to make nice with Katara and has been winching on about it all day long." Eduard wait a moment for his head to quit hurting.

"We had a special night after being a part so long." Suko sat cross legged in the doorway of the tent. "We've been along so long and so..."

Eduard raised his hand to signal Suki to stop. "Sorry about him. He saved my life but he has a certain obsessive compulsive streak and he's been going on and on about how Katara doesn't respect him. I keep going on and on about how I have a headache and don't care because we have far more important things to worry about like the end of the world and preparing Aang to battle Fire Lord Ozai."

"I missed Sokka." Suki smiled gently. She had suffered as Eduard had suffered and she had long wanted to talk with him. "The thought of him kept me going when I had lost all hope. Azula enjoys her torments but gave up on me when I had nothing to give her. What can I say but I'm sorry for what she did to you."

"Eduard Tubin offered her dedicated service with a minimum of corruption," Eduard said slowly and softly. "Looking back I would have stolen more money and taken more bribes."

Suki laughed gently. "I hope Zuko doesn't take long. I have a date with my guy."

"Dinner at this island's finest followed by a play?" Eduard sarcastically added. "Sorry – that was a bit abrupt but my head hurts and we always end up camping in the kind of places where _in our world_ we conduct atom bomb tests."

"Long day?" Suki said sympathetically. "What's an atom bomb?"

"A very big, loud and nasty bomb," Eduard explained as best he could. "Lets just call the Mother of All Bombs. So big no sane nation would ever use it but every powerful one and a few that wanted to play with the big boys had to have one. A single atom bomb could blow up a city but I can tell by your confused look that you don't get it." Eduard rambled.

Suki pondered this for a moment but decided to let it slide as one of those Eduardisms Sokka had warned her about on the trip home on the airship. "You lost your eye to Azula." Suki said cautiously. "She kept me in isolation in the Fire Nation palace. She tried to break me and tossed me in _The Boiling Rock_ to rot when I didn't give her the satisfaction of breaking down. I would have lost my mind if I didn't believe somehow Sokka would find me."

Eduard looked at Suki, "and now you want to know what kept me sane?" Eduard took a moment to think. He had not permitted himself to remind himself of that horror and it took a few moments to collect his thoughts and control his emotions. "I guess I accepted my death on some level because I had nothing else to live for. My closest friend was Azula and she had me imprisoned because of her paranoia. Anyhow I think it's time you go now." Eduard spoke with great sadness in his voice. Suki bowed and stood up.

* * *

><p>"I know who killed Katara's mother," Zuko stepped inside the tent.<p>

Eduard lay back with his hand over his head wondering if he could ever find silence. "How does that help?" Eduard lifted up his hand. "I have to ask what you hope to accomplish with this little nugget of information? What guarantee do you have that you can find this person and even if you can, then what? You're not a judge and the authorities in the Fire Nation would as much kill you as hear your complaint."

"I can help Katara find him and avenge her mother's death!" Zuko spat out loudly. "She will want to know this and then she can choose what to do!"

Eduard sat up, "and that is?" He coughed for a moment. "All your worst traits come forward when you believe you know something absolutely. Has the idea of evidence gone completely out the window along with trials, law and order, good government and all the things we stand for? Are you going to track this nan down and kill him? If so, then what if you make a mistake and blow away some innocent guy who never had anything to do with this?"

Zuko looked at Eduard and turned away. "I knew you wouldn't understand!" Zuko walked away in a huff. "Silk robed idealistic know nothing!"

"Impetuous rash unthinking..." Eduard said under his breath and lay back.

Toph crawled into the tent a few minutes later and spoke quietly, "you asleep?"

"No!" Eduard answered back.

"Katara made your tea," Toph held out a cup of tea as Eduard sat up. "She has some kind of problem with Zuko so she didn't get around to making it it until a few minutes ago. I hope you don't mind."

"Not at all," Eduard said with his impeccable manners. "Thank you." He took the cup and began drinking it slowly.

"Now get to sleep." Toph stood for a moment. "I made the tent for you and Zuko. Where is he?"

"Meh?" Eduard said as he sipped the last of the tea. "He has his own preoccupations and we had an argument."

* * *

><p>Eduard decided to take a morning stroll around the makeshift camp and wondered if he had become a life time refugee. Eduard pondered his program for world domination if he ever became Fire Lord (he knew Azula would have him bumped off long before then even if he curried her favor). He would have set this island aside for his nuclear bomb tests. He found something in its remoteness and barren hills that gave him the urge to blow the living crap out of it. Such a remote and uninteresting place deserved obliteration. His head had stitches and his eye had gone missing and he entertained his morbid thoughts. He wondered if bending made the construction of an atomic bomb easier. He knew the technology wouldn't let him enrich uranium or make plutonium without a huge expense to make some kind of enrichment facility.<p>

Katara walked beside him for some time and watched him staring at a yellow and gray rock. "What has you so absorbed in thought?"

"I loved my home on Ember Island," Eduard answered quietly. "Every other place I hate."

Toph began the rhythm of the Elgar Cello Concerto. She had heard Eduard hum that so many time she could not count but she didn't expect him to break down. Eduard began to weep aloud.

"Oh God I missed the music." Eduard began to cry. "I am not the first to say this but I fear that all that is good and kind is gone forever never to return." Eduard cried. "I so miss the good and kind people."

Toph said nothing but held the delicate man as he cried.

"Oh god how I miss my family." Eduard cried out. "In this world I have no Elgar no Mozart and no one to remind what is true!"

"Oh..." Toph hugged him gently. "I knew you were unhappy but I didn't know what to do." She held him gently. "I could hear your unhappiness. Are you in love with Zuko?"

"Get all my frank admissions out of me?" Eduard smiled through his tears. "What gave me away?"

"You find him good and kind?" Toph let go and patted his back. "You two argue like you care about each other."

Katara put her arm around Eduard. "Would you still think of me as good and kind if I killed my mother's murderer?" She looked at Eduard with her intense blue eyes. "You should know your opinion matters to me. Zuko has offered his help to track him down but I know my decision makes you deeply unhappy."

Eduard wiped his tears away. "I have faith in you to do the right thing. If you kill your mother's murderer, you'll shatter that faith but I'll live and I'll be very unhappy." Eduard put his arm around Toph "Then again I have faith in you guys to do the right thing."

Toph walked with Eduard holding her arm around his waist. "Too bad you're gay."

Katara stood back and mused in her own mind what Eduard had said.

* * *

><p>Everyone in the group sat around the camp fire except Eduard who lay back in his stone tent and rested, and Zuko and Katara who had left earlier that day. Eduard could hear the voices of the others as he lay back but their conversation didn't interest him. He lay in the dark and contemplated the future. He had no desire to remain on this remote island and had offered his house on Ember Island as a place to hide out while the group worked out their plans for the final battle and Aang trained to use all four elements.<p>

"Why are you hiding here?" Toph poked her head in the stone tent she had made for him. "You have to drink your 'tea' and you should come out and join us or we'll think your deeply unhappy about things."

Eduard opened his eyes and sat up, "I'm not unhappy and I'm not ignoring you guys. I need to rest so I can come to grips with things."

"Drink your tea." Toph handed him the cup of greenish brown slime that doubled as medication.

"Oh very well," Eduard conceded. "I can lay in here and have the bugs eat me alive in the dark or I can go sit by the fire and have the bugs eat me alive out there." Eduard drank his tea quickly and grimaced then sat up. "Did Katara teach you how to make that tea?"

Toph shook her head. "She taught Suki how to prepare it." Toph followed Eduard to the ring of stones she had arranged around the fire and sat down next to him.

"The fierce swordsman has to show his ability to take advantage of a weakness in his opponent!" Sokka flailed his sword around in a wide arc and pointed at Eduard. "I made this sword out of metal from a meteor!" Sokka smiled proudly.

Eduard looked at the dark metal sword. "Meteor metal? Do you mind if I take a look at it?"

Sokka handed the sword to him. "I studied with a great master and he helped me make this sword."

"Wow!" Eduard held the dark blade by the hilt. "What I wouldn't give to know what this thing was made of!" Eduard held it up which he found was no easy feat. The blade had a metallic luster but none of the kind of damask like patterns in high carbon steels like top end kitchen knives. The blade looked about the same length as a katana without the curve. Eduard tried to flex the blade against his leg but it refused to bend – this likely ruled out iron or steel and hinted at something much more refractory.

"Quiet!" Suki hushed everyone. "Toph? Put out the fire. I see a light on the horizon!"

Toph stomped her foot and a wad of wet earth smothered the fire. "I can hear a motor." She whispered to Sokka."

Eduard looked up and saw to the east a set of lights floating in the air above the sea. "My employers want their money back?" He whispered as he listened to the distant drone of the engines.

Toph stomped her foot and the camp vanished beneath the ground. "We have to hide!"

"Where?" Eduard asked sarcastically. "We have fewer places to hide than in one of those dreams when you have to speak publicly and you've forgotten your pants!"

Toph slugged him and made a few delicate motions and a cavern opened up in the ground. "Everyone in here!" She pushed Eduard ahead of her and motioned to all the others. She could hear the dull hum slowly growing in intensity and guessed the airship would pass overhead.

"Do you do Biblical events?" Eduard asked as he felt himself pushed down into an underground tunnel. He held out his hand and made a small orange flame above it to guide the others. "When we leave this island, I say we sink it."

Toph made a motion and the ground slid over the opening and the tunnel grew very quiet. At the end of the tunnel she had made a small circular room with a dome over it and a small opening at the top. Everyone found their gear carefully stacked in the center.

"You stole from the Fire Nation?" Sokka asked Eduard as he took a brief tour of the room. "I thought of you as the honest, hard working, dedicated type."

"I took a few things like pens, pencils, gold paid to me as bribes so certain units could obtain porn and beer." Eduard sat on a stone bench Toph had made out of the living rock. "Where I come from; this is part of a grand tradition of graft and corruption going back many centuries. We call it organized religion."

"Isn't that dishonesty?" Aang asked as Eduard gave him a good long, hard look.

"A bit out of touch with that I'm afraid." Eduard said sarcastically as he lay back on one of the stone benches and held his hand up dutifully to give light to the others. "When compared to letting the poor troops carry on in the trenches unfulfilled and sober?"

Toph cuddled Eduard by his arm. "What is that sad song?"

"Elgar's Cello Concerto?" Eduard answered slowly. "Seemed appropriate."

* * *

><p>The house on Ember Island had not changed except that bits of it that had not fallen before Eduard took possession had fallen down. The forces of entropy had reduced the dock from a 'Honey Do' project to something that on good days might bear the weight of a small dog. Watermelons planted by Eduard had grown up the cliffs and along the road. Eduard had noticed the house had continued to receive mail and the weekly Ember Island newspaper (a small publication that took all of two sheets of newsprint to publish). Eduard felt pride as he faced the pile of mail carefully stacked just inside the non existent front door.<p>

"According to this, I'm the latest entrant in the _Reader's Digest Lucky Dip_." Eduard flirted with reading the junk mail. "Scratch with a coin to reveal your prize – either a holiday property on Ember Island or a cobalt blue tea cup." Eduard pulled out a coin. "Of course I'm not a winner and I don't read _Reader's Digest_."

"Do you have Gas?" Aang piped up. "_Ember Island Coal Gas Limited_ wishes to remind you that your bill has gone unpaid for a month."

"That would explain the equally polite letter from the collection agent." Eduard held up a letter with bright red characters on it. "Does the gas company know I'm dead?" Eduard ruffled an old Ember Island News and Views community newspaper. "My obituary states that I died in a heroic airship accident and my service will be remembered by the royal family." Eduard handed the paper to Aang. "I'm deeply moved."

Toph pushed past the heap of mail. "Do you know you have lizards in your basement?" She said urgently.

"The elementary school down the road has noticed some students have gone missing." Eduard held up a yellow envelope from the local Ember Island council. "If you find yourself in need of a make work project, land a rock on their heads." He opened the envelope. "My alderman wants my vote. Too bad the dead can't vote."

Eduard decided against reading back issues of the newspaper and letters from collection agents. A parcel from Azula had an odor that reminded Eduard of a dead cat fermenting in the summer heat as made faint ticking noises so Eduard decided to dispose of it.

"Your stove doesn't work!" Suki announced when she stumbled into the kitchen.

"The gas company threatened as much," Eduard mumbled as he pushed the mail into a heap on the stairs of the front porch. "You have the services of two fire benders if you badly need to cook something." He held Azula's parcel at arms length and made for the ramshackle dock at the beach. "If you will forgive me – I have to dispose of a bomb."

Eduard found Katara still sitting quietly on the end of the dock. He held Azula's parcel at arm's length and drop kicked it into the ocean and it promptly exploded after sinking. Eduard had every expectation of having the dock crumble under his feet and having to swim to shore but the dock held in spite of the fact several boards caught fire.

Katara casually motioned to drown the flames.

"Fish for dinner?" Eduard watched dead fish rise to the surface. "Can we eat dolphin?" Eduard watched a bottle nose dolphin's gray corpse rise to the surface in the grimy oil slick the blast left behind. "I mean we didn't kill it, rather Azula's bomb killed it and it looks like it would cook up nicely. Sad to see a victim of the post office union but can we eat them? I mean..."

Zuko rushed up. "I heard a blast." The dock shook as he ran.

"Azula sent me a present." Eduard said as he squatted down to touch the dolphin. "Or she had the harbor mined. Have you ever tasted dolphin sweetmeats?"

"Bleh!" Zuko stuck his tongue out.

The dolphin still felt warm and had the consistency of some kind of porridge. It had experienced the blast up close and every possible orifice bled. Eduard had never seen a dolphin up close and had a fascination with it. He came from a long culinary tradition that did make a habit of eating tree fungus and raw meat and he did somewhat suffer from a blurring of the concepts of tuna – edible fish – and dolphin – social sea mammal.

"Holy hell!" Eduard stepped back as a great white shark bit the dead dolphin in two and submerged with the front half. "Is everything in the world trying to kill me?"

Katara grabbed Eduard's collar to keep him from toppling backward into the water. "We have lots of melons."

* * *

><p>"Suki wants a bath," Sokka told Eduard "Nice night robes by the way." Sokka found Eduard in the first floor bedroom in front of a dirty mirror doing up his hair with a hairpin. Sokka noticed Eduard valued neatness in his appearance and fussed over his hair and clothes.<p>

"How does that concern me?" Eduard tightened the silk ribbon onto his braid. "Or is this a way of telling me we have no hot water or no water."

"We have no running water." Sokka explained.

Eduard tightened his night robe and pushed past Sokka to gain access to the mirror. "I know." Eduard checked his appearance. "You may wonder how I know." Eduard raised his finger to emphasize his point. "Glad you asked. In the back yard under a set of stones we have a well that gives us water and when I called on the taps in the bathroom for rushing water I got a dribble that smelled like the sort of thing barfed up by the Fifth Ring of Hell. I went out and examined the well and found a dead – whatever passes for an opossum – in the bottom of it. Suki can have her bath but I would fish out the marsupial first."

Sokka looked at Eduard. "Didn't you get rid of it?"

"It will go away on its own accord." Eduard patted Sokka's shoulder. "I found the damned thing but I'm not in the mood for choking back my vomit to fish it out of there even if I could stumble upon some method to gather its nasty bits together."

"You have a dead possum mouse in the well!" Zuko announced from the hallway. "I fished it out but I don't know what to do with it!"

"What!" Eduard rushed out and choked. "So_ drag it through the house_ came to mind before tossing it into the bush?"

Zuko held out the dead, bald and _now impaled on a stick_ animal out for Sokka and Eduard to examine.

"Oh man that's just nasty!" Eduard complained as his eyes teared up. "That thing has a freaking half life! Toss it into somewhere where we won't slip on it! I'm sure the forces that rule life, death, the Universe and everything won't mind." Eduard motioned for Zuko to leave. "Shouldn't it have hair?"

"Sokka!" Suki cried out from the second story bathroom. "The water smells foul!"

"Zuko!" Eduard pointed out the front door. "Go with God! Go with Buddha! Go with Vishnu but go!"

Zuko walked briskly away muttering about how Eduard was insufferable.

"What's next?" Eduard wiped his eyes. "Nuclear waste drums in the watermelon patch? Nerve gas under the porch. A tech support team in the attic providing toll free call out service for blenders?"

"What?" Sokka followed Eduard into the kitchen.

"Nothing." Eduard muttered. "I should make a pot of tea."

"Do you have a shovel!" Zuko shouted from outside.

"Just kick it into the bush – the animal's in no condition to complain!" Eduard turned on the tap and washed out the copper kettle. "Drop kick it through the goal posts of life. We don't need some elaborate pagan ritual that involves erecting a pyramid!" Eduard held the pot up and made a flame grow out of his hand to boil the water.

"Would you want that if you came back as him in the next life?" Zuko asked. "Show _him_ some respect."

"Yeah!" Eduard placed the old kettle on the counter. "We all know how God knows about the life of the humblest living thing. Too bad that he didn't help the poor creature out when it drowned in the well but I don't pretend to understand the larger order behind these things."

Eduard put the kettle down and realized he would get no useful things done until he provided a funeral for the possum. "We could use Toph but she's sleeping through all of this." Two things diverted Eduard's attention from making tea, Zuko began a long prayer and then clapped his hands. Eduard decided to investigate before Zuko started a pet cemetery. Eduard found the stick with the animal propped up against the front steps.

"I simply said a prayer," Zuko looked at Eduard.

"I could go for the field goal but this thing might simply explode into a pile of goo." Eduard walked down into the bush. "We're gathered here in the sight of Almighty God – blah blah." Eduard tossed the stick into the bush.

Zuko showed up with an old rusted shovel. "What did you do? I found a shovel in the room under the porch!"

"Tossed him into the bush and let him out to rot." Eduard said callously. "He didn't pay for the special funeral service."

"He may have had a family." Zuko said glumly.

"If you think," Eduard wagged his finger as Sokka looked on. "If your deluded and possibly mentally unstable royalness thinks I'm going to dig a hole for a dead rodent!"

"I'll dig the hole." Zuko offered.

"I have no idea where he landed when I tossed him in the bush." Eduard gave Zuko a stare that told Zuko Eduard would not conduct a search.

"You meant well," Sokka patted Zuko's back.

"He fell into a well," Eduard walked past Zuko. "I haven't seen possum cops and coroners about the place probing his fate. I don't want you digging up the place and burying things anyway." Eduard looked at a lizard that had followed Zuko down the hill. "As you have discovered, we have lizards in the basement and they make a modest living eating mice so what I do want to know is if you left the door to the basement open."

"Oh." Zuko looked at the lizard as it woefully looked up at him. "They crapped all over the basement but they seem friendly."

* * *

><p>Eduard and Katara sifted through the attic. Eduard had no time to equip the kitchen with all or even some of the necessities and they decided to look in the attic through boxes and crates that had been in that hot space for the better part of four decades. The dark attic became an oven in the late summer heat but two small open windows kept a breeze going.<p>

"If the Fire Lord has such power," Eduard pulled out old books, "why didn't he hire someone to clean up all his crap." Eduard found an old book of traditional Fire Nation nation recipes with faded color illustrations of a way to cook various animals Eduard would not have imagined ingesting.

"Why didn't you hire anyone to get rid of all this crap?" Katara piled a set of dark gray dishes on each other hoping she'd happen to find a complete set.

Eduard held the recipe book and gave Katara an angry look. "Well, I would have had the cleaners come in but I had my execution looming. Next time I face death I hope I have the presence of mind to hire someone to clean."

"Sorry." Katara looked down at her pile of dishes. "I forgot."

"Not a problem," Eduard said quietly.

Toph stomped up the stairs that led into the attic with a raucous thumping that made Katara's plates rattle and dust rise from between the ill fitting floorboards. "Do you need any help?" Toph said cheerfully as her head poked above the attic hatch. "I made friends with the lizards!"

"Aw!" Katara held up a fainted painting of a baby boy with a bucket and spade. "Zuko as a baby! He's so cute!"

"If you say so." Eduard picked through a box of things he had found in the attic. "Cute is in the eye of the beholder." Eduard found a box of old mail that dated back from the times of Fire Lord Azulon. "Dear General Iroh. I didn't know Iroh was a general. Some kind of mental block keeps me from seeing a man who dresses like a hippie as having high military rank."

"He almost conquered Ba Sing Se," Toph reminded Eduard.

"How are you enjoying your rest on Henwa Island?" Eduard found that the box of mail contained little of any historical importance.


	5. Chapter 5

**The Tourists Guide to the Realm of the Avatar**

**(The Voyage of Eduard)**

**Chapter 5**

Eduard worked in his kitchen making tea. He had decided to stay away from_ Ground Zero_ where Zuko and Aang made a habit of practicing their fire bending drills because he valued his eyebrows. A series of nerve wracking concussions that resembled artillery went off and white dust fell down from the ceiling into the tea. Zuko or Aang had unleashed a volley of fire bending prowess and Eduard wondered if his house would remain standing.

Sokka and Suki walked together through the kitchen as Eduard went about the task of making tea and cringing at loud noises.

"We went for a walk in the village." Sokka announced eagerly.

"Sunnydale," Eduard corrected him. "The village named Sunnydale."

"Have you seen this?" Sokka held up an elaborately printed poster in front of Eduard.

"You've invented the poster?" Eduard said as he heard a loud explosion. "That will prove a valuable addition to the long march of progress. Can you two please tell the Demolition Duo to quit for a while. We have more plaster on the floor than the freaking walls. My tea has started to harden on its own."

"_The Ember Island Players_," Sokka sounded a good deal like a high end home theater kit salesman at Best Buy to Eduard's delicate ears, "present a play_ 'The Boy in the Iceberg'_."

Eduard dunked the tea ball into the tea pot. "Bear in mind that you plan to attend a Fire Nation play. _The Ember Island Players_ have not earned a reputation for presenting fine and edgy works that thrust political satire and criticism into the spotlight." Eduard knew that any effort in that direction in the Fire Nation could wind up having the author, the producer and anyone else attending the play thrown into prison. "I warn you this play will have the usual Fire Nation political slant. The Boy in the Iceberg will end, as all their plays do, in the triumph of the Fire Nation or politically affiliated hero and the death of the opposition."

Sokka handed Suki the colorful poster and gently spoke the words Eduard had expected. "We need to ask you for the money for tickets."

"How do you know _I_ have money?"

"You told us," Sokka followed Eduard around the kitchen as he fetched the honey and cream for the tea. "You have money you set aside from all those bribes you took."

Eduard took a deep breath. Sokka had greater physical strength and coordination than Eduard, but this didn't prevent Eduard from entertaining a deeply held wish to punch Sokka in the face. Sokka was pleasant but at times annoyingly frank. "You wish to _borrow_ money from me?" Eduard twirled his hand. "The money you_ borrow _will buy tickets to this play and we'll all go and enjoy an evening out?"

"Yeah."

Eduard handed Sokka the tray of tea and condiments. "Sell the others on it." He shoved Sokka toward the back door. "At the same time tell Aang and Zuko to go easy on the backyard. That is the last of the intact china I own." He held up his tea cup to make his point.

* * *

><p>An hour later Suki found Eduard with a cup of tea sitting at his rickety dining room table staring off at a beam of sunlight coming through the window.<p>

"We took a vote and decided to see the play," Suki sat down across the table from Eduard as he patiently sipped his tea. "We've worked hard and need a break."

Eduard made the red velvet upholstered chair make a creaking noise as he considered this. "Has Deep Thought _realized_ this is a public event?" Eduard turned his tea cup around on the table. "We're wanted fugitives according to the Fire Nation. They have rewards posted for all of us that have _'Wanted Dead or Alive'_ in bold characters above our names and a believable picture of each of us below that. Of course the Fire Nation means – dead. The living tend to cause more problems and require feeding. What delicate and sophisticated plan has Sokka got to deal with this problem?"

"Hats!"

"Hats?" Eduard looked at Sokka as if the water tribe man had gone completely insane. "Just hats?" Eduard considered this as rather recklessly thought out considering that the Fire Nation wanted them all dead. "Hats? You want to borrow cash from me and buy tickets and then attend the theater wearing hats as a disguise?"

"Yes." Sokka nodded as Suki stood next to him with her arm on his back and nodded.

"The theater will have dim lighting and no one will see us." Suko added.

"I have recalled similar plans of his in the past that were equally well thought up," Eduard punctuated his speech with flamboyant hand gestures. "I doubt if I even own a hat. Many Fire Nation hats look dorky or on a hot day make your brains being to boil. I have an idea! Send Toph out to the play with a pad of paper and she can make a flip-book movie."

"Toph is blind." Suki said quietly.

Karo had hoped he wouldn't have to explain his stab at dry wit but at this point, he realized this crowd didn't grasp his sense of humor. "Consider her blindness a small blessing when attending a play by_ The Ember Island Players_."

"Come on!" Sokka happily put his hand around Eduard. "Entertainment is good for morale. You have a few of these cloth things." Sokka placed a red tea cozy on Eduard's head and straightened it out. "A fashionable hat for the fashionable Eduard."

* * *

><p>"A tea cozy?" Eduard raised the eyebrow over his blind eye.<p>

Eduard followed reluctantly behind the group and wondered how they had persuaded him to _attend_ the play and _pay_ for the tickets. He must have had a kind of mental lapse he would regret later. The waning moon still was bright enough to light up the path and a row of gas lights lit up the stone path that led through a grove of ornamental palm trees to the wide and baroque front of the _Ember Island Playhouse_. Eduard kept as close to the shadows as the group walked toward the main entrance to the playhouse.

Eduard had one eye – Azula had taken the other out. He lacked depth perception and banged his head on a rather ostentatious looking gold dragon that stood on one side of the large paved courtyard in front of the theater. This did nothing to improve his mood since bumbling into a gold leaf covered five meter tall dragon did little to help him avoid attention. It had a partner on the other side of the lobby and Eduard could almost imagine that both of them had snickered.

"Ow!" Eduard looked up leering dragon. "Remind me to return in the middle of the night and vandalize that."

The actual theater looked like an Asian version of the kind of baroque monstrosities found in the cultural districts of many cities in his world. A theater consisted of a large room for an audience with spaces backstage for props and actors. Eduard never understood why adding finials, carvings and gaudy colors made them into landmarks. It occurred to Eduard that this must be one of those odd consistencies between universes which required the buildings used to house cultural events to look posh and overdone.

"You'll all want snacks." Eduard muttered as he entered the wide theater lobby. He could smell the smell of overpriced snacks permeating the lobby. Posters hung on the walls and promised more mediocre entertainment in the future months. A teenage boy held his hand out for the tickets and ripped the top part off. Eduard looked around and thought that for the obligatory neon signs and the flat panel television hanging over the snack booth showing _Coming Attractions_; the theater looked and smelled a good deal like any chain theater he had visited.

"Is that my tea cozy?" Eduard looked at Aang as he handed Sokka a few coins for snacks. Sokka and Suki trundled off purposefully for the snack bar. "At least you're wearing the really ugly one."

Katara didn't expect a great performance either but she didn't voice her opinions about Fire Nation theater as venomously as Eduard. "We'll see the play and if it's really bad then we can all have a good laugh and make fun of it."

"Which actor will play the famous and cunning Eduard?" Toph asked sarcastically.

"Some French git in mime make up," Eduard answered back unhappily. "What makes you think I have a part in this play? The Fire Nation powers that be – Azula Princess of Poison – has declared me dead. The dead certainly can act but it's a bit of a stiff performance."

No one got the joke.

"Who designs the interiors for these places?" Eduard had gone to the washroom just prior to the play and he stood at the sink washing his hands and looking for the roll of paper towels that a lifetime of using the public restrooms in huge Multiplex Theaters and public places had told him to expect them hung off the wall in a tidy looking plastic dispenser. He gave up when he found none and shook his hands into the pink marble sink. He had a cultural bias against anyone who would hang red wallpaper in a washroom and have brass fixtures with a kind of light stomach medicine pink marble for the sinks and toilets. The lobby had purple wallpaper, green trim and gold leaf on everything. Eduard had come to accept having Fire Nation interiors assault his senses and had a theory that color blindness was a dominant trait among their interior decorators.

Eduard tried to open the heavy wooden door by the brass handle and it refused to unlock for him. He wiped his hands on his pants hoping to wipe off the soapy water and gain more purchase but the washroom was good and locked.

"A special place in Hell." Eduard swore. Anyone on the other side of the door might have heard the most blistering attack on Life the Universe and Fire Nation bathrooms ever delivered in French. Eduard decided after a few minutes of fruitless struggle to give up and find another way out of the bathroom. He found a hatch in the ceiling. As he was on the first floor of a three story building; he hardly had any idea where it might lead. He stood on the counter, then balanced on the toilet cubicle doors and with an easy reach, he pushed the hatch to find a vent he could fit inside.

"I'm probably going to wind up in the Boiling Rock," Eduard heaved himself up into the vent and began to push himself along with his hands making a loud thumping as he did. The vent had decades of dust and rodent feces. Eduard sang quiet verses of the _Four Letter Chorus_ as he moved along. "Did that guy that went through a pipe in the movie Aliens to signal the drop ship live..."

Eduard fell into a small janitorial supply closet. A dozen _Sunbright 100 Watt Warm White_ light bulbs struck him on the head making a loud series of pops like firecrackers going off. Eduard sat on the floor staring up at a bare bulb on a wire and cursed his life. He slowly stood up and brushed the foul white powder off his clothes.

"I could choke ferrets!" Eduard yelled.

The door to the closet was not locked and Eduard found himself in a hallway leading to the backstage area. He shook his head to rid himself of the remaining dust and began his search for someone to yell at for locking him in the bathroom. He found himself in a large back stage area watching stagehands move props around with some degree of purpose. The back stage area had stagehands moving props and Eduard did his best to hide into the corner out of sight and mind of the people supplying the audience with props and special effects. Eduard saw an elderly man operating a wire recorder to supply the special effects. Eduard had seen a similar device in a British science museum as a small child. It recorded sound (with appalling fidelity) at a time when most people lived in the _Age of Steam _but he realized it might provide something they could use.

Eduard recognized the stagecraft of the less than competent artists as props made of canvas and cheap spruce lumber rolled past on dollies. They looked like the hasty work of a high school drama class with far too many choices of tempera paint colors. They may have looked convincing enough to an audience in the dark but to Eduard they fell short: colors bled into each other and he could see that the colors didn't fit the lines on the finer details. Eduard had not seen the play but seen enough to conclude it was 'Godawful'. He watched the delicate dance of stagehands and props, devices that made people fly on cables and hoist and pieces of mechanical ingenuity used to make cardboard look like a rock.

Eduard game to realize he had a major problem. He had learned to speak and read Chinese as an adult. He knew English grammar from school and it resembled Chinese to such a degree that in many cases he only had to play a game of word substitution to make a workable sentence. He found this 'freaky' but 'useful'. On the other hand, he had a habit of fumbling certain sounds like the Chinese 'r' which he rendered by gargling and had what Azula had politely called a 'colorful accent'. Word order caused him problems. If he grew tired or confused, he tended to do what Katara called 'scrambling' his sentences. She had accumulated a series of 'Eduard-isms' she had heard which included saying 'house big' rather than 'big house' and despite having normal color vision, he used the word 'red' and 'brown' interchangeable. She had to ask him to make several times when he produced a gem (perfectly grammatical in Estonian) but indicative of neurological injury to her. 'House, me of, Island Ember of we (random syllable) Nation of Fire (random syllables) from hide can.' He had an accent and was by no means a native Chinese speaker which meant he had to shut up.

Eduard shrunk further into the corner.

A play that had two intermissions provided no comfort for a man who had found himself locked in the bathroom. The actors began streaming into the backstage area as stagehands wheeled out the cart with drinks and snacks on it. The cart looked like all the other props – crudely built, crudely painted red and wobbly. A wobbly looking man about four times Eduard's age handed out snacks and water.

A stagehand placed a large wooden barrel full of dry ice. The special effects called for fog and that meant a large barrel of dry ice of the sort used by upscale fishmongers. The stagehand placed it right in front of Eduard in his corner and didn't seem to notice Eduard at all. Eduard discovered that an excess of carbon dioxide didn't mean only global warming but also acted as a very quick anesthetic.

* * *

><p>"Aang?" Eduard's vision formed as his brain began processing shape, color and form.<p>

"Ming Ku." The woman sitting at a mirror ringed by lights replied. "You may not remember this but we met once. Our troop came to the Fire Nation palace and put on a play for the royal court."

"Why do you have Aang's clothes?" Eduard coughed. "Or did I die and wind up in another alternative universe where we've switched genders?" He sent a command to his midriff to check on the installed devices, "I suppose not."

"Our producer found you unconscious in a corner of the back stage." Ming Ku said with some irritation. "Don't you remember me at all?"

"Not quite over the effects of being gassed," Eduard found himself lying on a blanket on the wooden floor of Ming Ku's dressing room. "I remember a play starring a Fire Nation Admiral who won a great battle and fell in love with..."

"I played the young Earth Kingdom peasant girl!" Ming Ku said as she cleaned off her make up. "I met you after the play during a Royal Ball. You had an odd name – Eduard – and you and I danced."

Eduard began to recall that evening. "I remember." He spoke groggily.

"The papers said you died." Ming Ku protested. "Imagine finding you passed out behind the fog machine!"

"Wow!" Toph stomped in. "I heard you met with one of your old girlfriends."

"Another misconception," Eduard struggled to get up as his mind cleared. "The phrase 'one of my old girlfriends' would imply I have had a girlfriend to begin with."

"You promised to keep in touch!" Ming Ku stood over him and pointed her finger at his nose. "You never wrote me!" She turned to Toph. "Imagine meeting a young, handsome, exotic eyed young man who had a gentle manner about him and he promises to write back after you spent the night dancing with him at a royal ball."

"Who would this be?" Eduard felt mentally thick and information in his brain simply refused to turn over in the usual way. He fingered his ear as if it were full of wax. "Why do I keep catching everything that passes through the fan when I wasn't the one who turned it on?"

"Ming Ku has offered to keep our identity secret," Zuko glowered at Eduard, "in spite of the fact the guy who jilted her passed out backstage."

"Do all women take what I say seriously?" Eduard asked Toph. "If I told you the Sun orbited the Earth on crystal spheres would you buy into it? I had no idea I had jilted anyone. I had to get executed by Princess Azula which did disrupt many of my plans. She threw me in jail and planned a grand execution – perhaps seeing my head on a pike turn a grim shade of green might have provided more closure?"

"He's back!" Katara strode into the small dressing room, "you have to listen for his sarcasm, dark view of life and follow that and you find him. He would have kept in touch if he could – right?" She said slyly as if to implicate Eduard in a lie.

Eduard glared at Katara. "Dig my grave deeper will you? Maybe I've missed a crucial detail but why are we free and not looking at a row of Fire Nation soldiers with Fire Nation spears?"

"Do you think I want to play the lead role in a play written by a moronic sycophant?" Ming Ku asked. "Do you think any actor with integrity would like to play these kind of roles – a bald lady Avatar? I hate what the Fire Nation has turned us into – propaganda dealing fools who dance for an idiotic puppet-master."

"Well," Eduard harrumphed. "That clears that up."

"Now please go before those who want to find you – find you." Ming Ku steadied Eduard and motioned the others out of the cramped room.

* * *

><p>Eduard stared over the patch of melons that he had planted at the beginning of the spring. The patch had grown over most of the front lawn of the house and sent shoots in and out of the palm trees. Whatever nutrients they found in the volcanic soil of Ember Island made them very efficient at converting the fusion energy of the Sun into plant matter.<p>

Katara tapped Eduard's shoulder. "Can I have a couple of those huge melons? They'd make for a nice snack in the hot weather."

"Help yourself, just leave the biggest one of the lot alone. We may have to hollow it out and live in it." Eduard could hear Aang and Zuko practicing along the front walk. "If Aang or Zuko have their way, this house will go down in flames."

"These will taste really nice in this afternoon heat." Katara smiled at Eduard as he adjusted his eye patch.

"If you need me I'll be inside working on a pet project of mine." Eduard stepped over Toph laying down on the front steps. "My my, don't you look comfortable."

"Hot!" Toph breathed out. "Too hot to do much."

Eduard walked into his house and went to the small room he had set aside as his office. He had a slide rule, drafting paper, a bunch of drawing tools and set out to work on his task. He heard Katara yelling something outside but ignored that to concentrate on his own project and ignored what he heard from outside. After a few minutes things went quiet and Eduard could concentrate on his own contribution to the Long March of Progress for a time when the world no longer was at war.

Eduard didn't notice the voices had died down and things had become quiet. "Did I tell them that sharks live in the bay?" Eduard muttered to himself as he enjoyed the quiet afternoon. "Never mind, they'll work it out for themselves."

The sound of several large fire bolts came from above Eduard's head in the direction of the roof. He heard the crack of wood and tile breaking and then a few moments later a loud thump followed by the sound of what sounded like a piece of wooden furniture breaking.

"If those dolts are fire bending on the roof," Eduard said to himself as he balled his fists in anger and held out a pencil, "I'll kill both of them _with my bare hands and this pencil!_" Eduard wasn't the sort of person who thought thoughts but rather preferred to make his take on an issue perfectly clear by voicing his opinions on matters of importance to him. This led to a flurry of curses in French as he rushed up the stairs.

"Crap!" Eduard came up the stairs as a powerful fire bolt sent him bouncing back down the stairs. "Who did that had better fess up!" He heard a loud crunch followed by the sound of timber, stucco and stone falling to bits and striking the ground. Eduard made for the front door rather than risk having himself flung down stairs a second time. He could smell the smell of smoke and burnt wood but no one was around. He put him in another on of his puppy stomping moods. He wondered who had set one of the palm trees on fire. Eduard brushed himself off and looked around the house for damage.

He found everyone including Appa on the grounds outside of the back side of the house. He crossed his arms and listened as Zuko explained how the world would end and his father would help bring it about. He listened to everything and then looked up and saw a two meter gash in the upper floor of his house and the railing of his porch.

"A very didactic speech," Eduard clapped his hands. "I want to ask," he twirled his hand as if encouraging a student.

"Oh! Now we're gonna get it!" Toph cautioned.

"Do the self evident facts escape only you people?" Eduard's voice grew gravelly and tense. "Zuko should have told you – given that he has cast his lot with you as I have. He should have told you that the Fire Lord had something brutal and holocaust like planned for the arrival of Sozin's Comet. I had imagined as much although I thought he would build two city leveling bombs and drop one on Ba Sing Se and one on Omashu. He would call one Fat Boy and the other Little Man. You should have expected something massively big and nasty. Ozai is evil in such a way that your garden variety kind of evil simply looks like an outhouse next to the Eiffel Tower by comparison." Eduard glared at Zuko then Aang turning like a viper toward them. "You broke my house! Two of the great forces for peace in the world and you two break the house. I feel like the humble inn keeper who had the Great Buddha himself as a guest and found out he had invited an entire gang of Australian Hell's Angels to party all night."

"Don't you see that my father wants to destroy the Earth Kingdom and the world will fall out of balance and be destroyed!" Zuko walked toward Eduard looking every bit as angry as Eduard.

"He can do that without you punching holes in my house can't he?" Katara heard this and felt relieved Eduard had maintained his calm. "If the world goes _foom_ and we all die when the Sun explodes then it won't make any difference to any of us because we will be reduced to our component atoms. On the other hand if you win and the world doesn't go_ foom_, then I _will want_ to live here in a house without the holes you two have just placed in the roof and second story guestroom."

"We need to practice!" Zuko stood up to Eduard and noticed how slim and small in stature he was and he looked like the last person picked in team sports. Zuko found it odd that the Prince of the Fire Nation feared the venomous temper of this little man.

"The Avatar planning to go into the demolition business after the War?" Eduard crossed his arms as if to dare Zuko to punch him. "I _know_ you need to practice but imagine how irritating you would find it if you had a nice place, a few pet lizards in the attic and a calm refuge from life. You enjoyed a nice garden and a study, a library of books and the Fire Nation Army took pot shots at your little acre of happiness!"

"What do you suggest?" Zuko relaxed a bit.

"Prepare for your confrontation by finding a nice, natural setting with no houses, remote from any houses so no one hears or sees you. Make sure it has lots of interesting terrain, all the four elements and then blow the living crap out of it." Eduard threw up his arms. "We have lots of such places in the hills above the village and by blowing them to kingdom come then we'll have fewer tourists."

* * *

><p>Ming Ku decided to visit him at his home since she had come to an important decision in her life. Eduard had danced with her at the ball after the play but he lacked the grace of a Fire Nation schooled noble. He spoke to her as an <em>equal <em>not as a mere actress and he had intelligent things to say. In a world where status depended on violence, cruelty and adherence to ideological principles, Eduard offered a change. He had done that most valuable thing in a patriarchal totalitarian regime – he had treated her as an equal. She walked up the path in the dusk. She watched – checked over her shoulder and hoped no one watched her and approached the front door. She had dressed to kill and hoped to seduce Eduard into helping her escape this regime of totalitarian oppression. She knew he was a criminal of the highest sort and she felt fear as she approached the front door.

She knocked on the massive wooden door and waited. She had expected servants but Eduard with his green and haunting eyes answered.

"Hello?" Eduard spoke and then halted. "Ming Ku?" He saw the small woman who played the role of the Avatar in her costume. He had said her name because he had come to mistrust his eyes and the general reliability of the information they sent to his brain.

"Yes." She bowed. "Can I join your group?"

"I really don't speak for the others," Eduard pulled her up. "They've gone off to practice."

"I want to help you defeat the Fire Lord and help bring peace." Ming Ku asked pathetically.

"Why don't we follow the sounds of destruction and ask the others." Eduard said kindly and pointed to the distant hills.

"I want to help the Avatar and end this war and then begin a new life as an actress..." She broke down and cried.

"Please," Eduard spoke calmly. "Please don't humiliate yourself on my account. I've seen enough of that sort of thing."

She followed Eduard along a trail that wound up between the trees of the forest and led to the top of a large open, rocky area where several distressingly large booms had recently come from. The evening breeze off the sea helped calm the distressed and emotional Ming Ku.

"I didn't know how you had suffered," Ming Ku tried to work her way up to an apology. "I thought that you had simply gone back to your high office and decided I was beneath your dignity. I didn't realize you had gone to prison and almost died."

Eduard pointed to the patch over his left eye. "Azula stabbed my eye out to teach me a lesson. I still haven't figured out what that lesson could be but there you go." He held back a palm frond so Ming Ku wouldn't get smacked in the head by it. "I can hear the sound of large rocks smashing so we're headed in the right direction."

"I missed you," Ming Ku put her hand on his shoulder as they walked through the forest.

"Air Rock!" Eduard covered Ming Ku and dodged to the side behind a bush. A two ton boulder shaped like an egg rolled down the hill burning and reeking of tar.

Toph laughed maniacally. "_I am _Melon Lord!" She stood on a hill surrounded by a henge of oblong burning boulders.

"Are you okay?" Eduard asked Ming Ku.

"Toph!" Eduard poked his head above of a small banana plant.

"Toph's not here!" Toph waved her hands. "I'm _Melon Lord!_"

"Sounds like a poorly thought out transvestite nickname!" Eduard cautiously stood up. "Have you finished chucking two ton rocks at me?"

"We're practicing our tactics to defeat Ozai in the final battle." Sokka explained as he loped up to Eduard. "Hello – you played Avatar Aang in the play. I don't know your name."

"Ming Ku." The dainty actress bowed.

"We have two Aangs," Toph slid down the hill kicking up a cloud of dust.

"Ming Ku came highly recommended," Eduard smiled. "We may need an understudy. In the event the Avatar cannot fulfill his duties, the Assistant..."

Ming Ku blushed. "I'm not able to bend through."

"If you all have finished pelting each other with boulders?" Eduard spoke loudly. "You have met Ming Ku and she wants to help in some way."

"What's that?" Zuko came into Eduard's study and found Eduard wearing a set of headphones standing over a bar fridge sized metal box with two reels on it and festooned with dials and buttons. Ming Ku sat on the couch and played with a smaller breadbox sized red metal box that looked like a large camera with a wheel mounted in its center.

"Huh?" Eduard took off the headphones. "You come to badger me about the questionable moral choice of stealing audio visual equipment from the theater?"

No?" Zuko stood back. "What is it?"

"We _borrowed_ this stuff if anyone asks._ This_ thing is a wire recorder and that thing is a Zoepraxiscope." Eduard pointed in Ming Ku's direction. "You guys have to find and stop Fire Lord Ozai but that leaves the charming and eye gouging Princess Azula."

"You can't take on my sister," Zuko scoffed.

Eduard fidgeted with the headphone cord. "No I can't - but thanks for the vote of confidence. Why is it I have this urge to garrote you with this cord? I imagine you'll have to fight your sister but even you may not have to power to defeat your sister. You have one advantage over her in that you're a sane and whole person while she's gone a trifle off. What Ming Ku and I have planned amounts to driving her over the edge. Have her see things, hear voices and so on. I lost one of my eyes – I was attached to it. I want to have my own kind of revenge."

"What if she catches you?" Zuko asked with concern.

Eduard simply shrugged, "I'm French so I'll surrender, wet myself and run up the white flag. I think if she catches up with me I'll find out what karma has in store for me in my next life." Eduard turned to Zuko.

"Aang has his own doubts." Zuko spoke with some concern. "He doesn't want to have to kill my father."

"He's probably the only one who doesn't want to kill your father," Eduard had some venom in his voice. "Everyone wants the guys in the black hats to hang on the gallows, no one wants to be the executioner."

"He says he won't kill my father," Zuko added quite urgently. "If he can't defeat my father then it doesn't matter what any of us do. The Fire Nation will win the war; the Earth Kingdom will get destroyed and we'll all die."

"I have no answer to that," Eduard looked to Ming Ku who had grown very quiet, "we can hope the ants or maybe the raccoons evolve to intelligence and rebuilt the Earth."

"Is it really that bad?" Ming Ku asked both Zuko and Eduard.

"I can't blame Aang for his convictions." Eduard knew powerful spiritual leaders were also pacifists and non violent; it was in fact a job requirement. Of course such powerful spiritual leaders often got pasted by life and suffered greatly for bringing spiritual enlightenment to the world – in Eduard's dim world view – they got exactly what they deserved.

"He has to defeat my father." Zuko insisted. "Only with my father gone can we finally have peace."

"Whatever happens, you have to leave tomorrow." Eduard knew he didn't say anything at all encouraging. "By now, your father has assembled the airship fleet and no doubt has everything ready for the arrival of Sozin's Comet."

"I know." Zuko gave Eduard a puzzled look. "How do you know Azula will stay in the capitol and not stand with her father?"

"Ozai will not share glory and he'll want someone to keep an eye on things at home. He's paranoid and psychotic" Eduard sighed. "Azula will remain behind in the capitol."

"You willing to bet your life on that?" Zuko sounded as if he had a dire warning to deliver.

* * *

><p>"Someone has to stay at the palace. If Aang does finish off your father Azula will remain." Eduard answered with a great deal of confidence for him. "You may have to face your sister to claim the throne – Lord knows she won't give it up without a fight and even you will have to admit that despite your talent as a fire bender, Azula could very well punch your ticket on the Eternity Express! She won't simply run up the white flag and hand over the keys. We have one advantage. Your sister has a weak and fragile mind which feeds her rage and cruelty. I would take great joy in helping to break her."<p>

"Do you think you want to bring that_ thing _with you?" Zuko lightly kicked the wire recorder.

Eduard bashed his knee against the heavy wire recorder. "Ow! You know I thought I might have a use for this thing but now I have reconsidered. I don't want to have to lug it around and if the wire snaps; we'll end up dodging piano wire."

Ming Ku and Zuko gave Eduard a well synchronized puzzled look.

"You could have at least cleaned up after yourself you meditating bastard." Eduard growled under his breath as he walked out on the balcony to take in the fine morning air and tripped over the tray that held the candles. He uttered a few curses as he wandered back in the house with the tray nursing a stubbed toe. The group had planned to leave that morning and he would leave on the ferry for the capitol with Ming Ku that evening wearing disguises.

"Have you seen Aang?" Katara asked as she met Eduard in the hallway.

"No."

"We can't find him anywhere."

Eduard held out the tray. "He left this out on the balcony."

"Not upstairs," Zuko puffed.

"He vanished into thin air!" Sokka exclaimed.

"Maybe he went for a walk?" Eduard suggested. "He's had a lot to deal with."

The group walked onto the balcony in the middle of that sentence completely leaving Eduard on his own.

"He left his glider." Sokka came back with the glider. "Where's Ming Ku?"

"What's she got to do with all this? She left for town to work." Eduard answered. "Some rehearsals I think." He knew it would arouse suspicions if she didn't follow her regular schedule."

Sokka gave some thought. "What if Ming Ku kidnapped him and has taken him hostage?"

"You didn't give that one much thought, did you?" Eduard scowled. "Ming Ku has about as much meat on her as some of the thinner rodents!"

"Come on!" Zuko walked quickly past Sokka and motioned, "we'll look outside."

"I'll check the closets." Eduard said dutifully.

Katara rushed past Eduard and gave him a dour look, "Aang would_ never_ hide in a closet!"

"I might give it a go," Eduard backed against the wall. "With the world ending, the last place the Four Horsemen would look would be the back of my closet. I can cower under a pile of pants."

Everyone rushed out and left Eduard pondering the next possible problem: Where would a bald guy with blue arrows all over his body possibly hide?

Eduard looked in the remote corners of his house hoping to find Aang suffering a crisis of confidence but Aang had utterly vanished. He looked in the basement and it's dim reaches, he found not a trace of Aang and walked up the rickety stairs halfheartedly thanking fortune he had not seen a green and pink lizard.

"His tracks ended at the sea." Katara announced as she passed by Eduard with Suki in tow.

"Oh Lord!" Eduard said sadly, "let the day perish wherein I was born!"

"What does that mean?" Suki demanded.

"Sharks and other dangers in sea at night," Eduard then decided to apologize for his grim statement. "I have never heard of the ones here causing problems."

"You stay here in case he shows up." Katara ordered Eduard. "We're going split up to look for him. We have to search all of the island we can before nightfall!"

Eduard feared dying a lonely death away from all the things he loved.

* * *

><p>Suki found him struggling to carry the Zoepraxiscope along the hall in preparation for leaving with Ming Ku. She knew it projected images from slides and that Eduard planned to use it to try and fool Azula into seeing things. He had found a picture of Lady Ursa and some choice family photos he could use and Ming Ku's training as an actress allowed her to imitate a broad range of voices.<p>

"No sign of Aang?" Eduard asked but he knew the answer judging from the defeated look on her face.

"No." Suki believed it would be best to answer honestly.

"I see," Eduard tried to itch his blind eye, "sorry it's all gotten to me." He looked up at Suki as if she had all the answers. "What do we do now? Ozai has no doubt put his plans into motion."

"Are you going to go to pieces now?" Zuko stormed down the hall toward Eduard.

Eduard put the heavy metal projector on the floor. "Things to do before I die – beat Zuko about the head."

Suki had to restrain Eduard who, given a chance, would have leveled a haymaker at Zuko.

"Sorry for being scared!" Eduard cried out, "but I've never had my world end! Of course I'm upset because in case you didn't notice, the Avatar has gone missing and I've never had any opportunity to complete any of the items on my bucket list! To make this even worse, I never even had a chance to do any looting before Armageddon! I thought I'd have a chance to break shop windows and steal nice stuff."

"Bucket list?" Zuko gently placed his arm around Eduard. "Never mind. I tracked Aang over half this planet and then some. We'll find him. You and Ming Ku have to put your plan into action. We'll need every advantage we can get over Azula."

"We have no choice," Eduard spoke almost dutifully. "I will go with Ming Ku on the ferry. We'll be in place to help when Ozai falls." Eduard thought to himself_ 'if Ozai falls'_ but the complete victory of Fire Lord Ozai meant Eduard's death and Ming Ku's endless imprisonment. "If my guess is correct then Azula has the throne of the Fire Nation _but_ a weak grip on reality."

A less than happy couple waited on the broad wooden dock for the ferry to take them across to the capitol. The sun shone fiercely and as they waited, they both got eyestrain from the glare off the water. Ember Island never had fall but the rainy season would arrive in a few weeks. Nerves, the anxious crowds and the sun made both Ming Ku and Eduard nervous, jittery and impatient. The jovial crowd of Fire Nation loyalists celebrating the coming of Sozin's Comet jostled, drank and sang as they waited on the dock.

"This is a disguise?" Eduard asked Ming Ku despairingly. "You put a braid in hair?" Eduard had doubts that people would blithely ignore him as he prepared to board the ferry.

"People see the symbols of your position," Ming Ku said calmly. "I know this because I've played many nobles in my career. You wore the gold hair ornament of the Fire Nation court. People see Eduard as a fallen noble – not a long haired civilian. People see me as Avatar Aang, not as your wife. I dressed like you and braided my hair so people see us as a Fire Nation couple."

The ferry was a simple paddle wheel driven ship painted white and black and sporting the logo of the Fire Nation. It had arrived on time as advertised and it took on the two passengers and their package without notice. They were one of hundreds of tourists heading home to the Fire Nation capitol for the coming of Sozin's comet. They had a celebratory mood, they lined up at the ferry cafeteria which had not seen such good business. The celebrants made no secret that they wanted a full victory. Eduard and Ming Ku sat down at an out of the way table at the back of a viewing deck at the port of the ship and placed their packaged on the polished wooden floor.

Eduard spread out his large pieces of paper on the red stained wooden table. Ming Ku had wondered about these and they looked like some kind of alien gibberish and diagrams mixed in from some kind of twisted sense of artistic aesthetic.

"I have seen you drawing that," Ming Ku leaned over the drawings to distract Eduard. "I have to ask what they mean."

"A nuclear reactor." Eduard answered and looked into Ming Ku's eyes.

"What does it do?" Ming Ku asked cautiously.

"Split atoms." Eduard replied and waited for any questions from Ming Ku. "If Aang fails, I hold out one kind of hope; a bitter hope. It can make a kind of bomb so huge and terrifying it should never see the light of day yet if Ozai lives and the Avatar dies we have no choice. Our world has the capability to build this thing. If we all fail, we will go to the Northern Water Tribe and find the Earth Kingdom Resistance. We will build this thing and build these kind of atom splitting bomb. We will use the first one to demonstrate to the Fire Nation what it can do by demolishing an uninhabited island. We will have peace and a balance of terror. Even the mad Ozai would think twice about going to war only to face atomic destruction. Azula might try but a demonstration would make her think twice when one bomb would rip the Fire Nation capitol off the face of the earth and kill a quarter of a million people."

Eduard said nothing for a few moments. He watched the silent landscape of the once beloved Ember Island sail past.

"Mutually Assured Destruction." Ming Ku answered back.


	6. Chapter 6

**The Tourists Guide to the Realm of the Avatar**

**(The Voyage of Eduard)**

**Chapter 6**

"We're coming into the Fire Nation capitol," Ming Ku sat next to Eduard patted Eduard on his back. The ferry had gone from celebratory to downright party central in the six hours between departure and arrival. An endless chorus of toasts rose up out of the crowd to salute Lord Ozai's wise and glorious leadership as Fire Lord and to the anticipated victory on the Day of Sozin's Comet. No one really knew how this would take place but they didn't care.

"Good!" Eduard complained, "I was running out of discreet places on this boat to toss my cookies. I just hate traveling by sea."

"Do you think they'll find Aang?" Ming Ku asked despairingly.

"He walked into the shark infested waters of the bay outside the house," Eduard reminded Ming Ku. "I haven't heard of a shark attacking a human – let alone an Avatar – but given that the only luck we've had lately was bad luck..."

"Cheer up," Ming Ku smiled and kissed him on the cheek. "I wanted to help and I don't mind if I have to spend my last hours on earth with a nice, kind young man."

"Wait?" Eduard blushed. "A nice, kind young man? You mean someone else came with us?"

The ferry docked with a thump and the crew and dockworkers rushed to moor it to the stone pier. A small gentleman announced quietly that the ferry had arrived on time at the Fire Nation Capitol. Eduard looked up at the city on the hills. The Fire Nation Capitol (which bore the name Tulkang) had a layout much like Naples and sprawled out along the rugged harbor. Generation after generation of quakes and tsunamis had pushed most of the city back from the sea, into the hills. The city had a population of a million with most of them living in the knotted nest of streets on the lower part of the city. Only nobles lived in the caldera that dominated most of the city.

"I never realized we hid out only a six hour boat ride from the centers of evil." Ming Ku remarked as she began to move toward the exits of the ferry. "Sunnydale seems a world apart. I can see why you would like to live there. I always found the Fire Nation Capitol oppressive."

"I grew up here." Ming said as if to silent Eduard.

A dense crowd of celebratory passengers crowded for all the exits while Ming Ku and Eduard's lingered back and happy or drunk celebrants jostled them around rudely. Eduard held tightly onto the red metal box with the projector and studied the caldera that held the Fire Nation palace as he walked down the dock. A narrow road lead up to the entrance to the Royal District that lay inside on the floor of the caldera but he knew they had guard towers every hundred meters along its length. After_ The Day of Black Sun_, the Fire Lord ordered them manned with his most loyal guards and no one stood a chance of gaining entry without a search and a complete identity check. The guards would take little time finding out Eduard and Ming Ku's identity.

* * *

><p>The band of loosely allied forces that attacked on the day of the eclipse failed their intelligence test. The Royal Fire Nation Military had its own harbor a dozen kilometers away on the outskirts of the city proper. The invaders had little time and attacked that harbor since it offered the shortest way into the city. Had they approached in any other direction then the city itself with narrow streets and no plan would have defeated them. They did not know what Eduard and Zuko knew – that <em>The Royal District<em> had a set of twelve tunnels that lead from discrete locations in the rim of the crater to the bottom where the harbor lay. Each tunnel came out in an important public building and Eduard knew their plan. Fire Nation nobles had hubris, they had pride but they weren't stupid. They knew they lived in a volcano and the tunnels allowed for a hasty retreat if they ever received warning of an impending eruption. He quietly led Ming Ku away from the harbor and up to a large building that housed what Eduard called _St. Peters_. Eduard knew _St. Peters_ was the _Grand Library of Commons_ – a massive building of five stories capped by an ornate dome. The name of the ornate building came from before the War when the Fire Nation had a House of Commons (for nobles to elect themselves). From the harbor one could see only the top of the copper roof. At night Ming Ku could only make out a ring of lights. Eduard knew one tunnel came out in the basement at a location hidden behind a stack of old music scores belonging to the music library. The distance from the dock to the Library was one and a half kilometers making it the easiest tunnel to gain access to.

A solid, wide road lead from the harbor to the capitol and trams ran up and down this boulevard even at midnight. The city took tourists by surprise. Cliffs and trees hid it from those at sea with only the tallest spires visible from the harbor. As Ming Ku and Eduard walked up the gentle hill, the trees parted and revealed a medieval city of vast size that sprawled along the curve of the harbor and followed the gentle hills. Eduard could see the lights of _The Library_ not too far in the distance. The old and delicate stone buildings with their ornamented stone and woodwork reminded Eduard of a Fire Nation Florence – with a reputation for evil and far fewer artists. He hoped the denizens of the beautiful but crowded capitol with all its fine houses would thank their luck for the fact no one had yet invented the bomber.

The Fire Nation Capitol ignored them. With their backpacks and ordinary red metal box, they looked like tourists come to celebrate the certain victory of the Fire Nation on the coming of _Sozin's Comet. _

"Follow me," Eduard said as much to reassure Ming Ku that he had a good idea what he was doing. He walked behind the north facing wall of the Library and began counting off flagstones until he reached the twelfth one from the wall and the twelfth one along it. In the dark, all of the stones looked alike but Eduard heard a slight click. Ming Ku heard nothing but a piece of the wall slid out and to one side like the doors of an elevator. A stairwell led down beneath the city. ""Here we go – deep into the bowels of the planet."

Ming Ku nodded and followed Eduard. As bad ideas went, this one seemed a particularly bad one to her but as she entered the torchlit stairwell and the stone door slid shut.

"We have a bit of a hike." Eduard stated the obvious. In fact the passageways beneath the city had lava, boiling mud pits and if Eduard made a wrong turn, he would come out on the bunker of the seventh hole of the Royal Fire Nation Golf and Country Club.

"Why do they have all these tunnels?" Ming Ku glanced at the torches set into the wall.

"For all the reasons nations at war do paranoid things." Eduard could feel the warmth of the earth energized by the powers of the core of the planet. "The Royal Family and various other knobs like to move around in secret." Eduard reached the bottom of the stairs and ended up in a roughly dug tunnel that looked like a giant gopher had dug it through the basalt under the city. He waited for Ming Ku and they began walking along the tunnel.

Compasses didn't work in the tunnels. Eduard had noticed the rocks made the compass needle point in odd directions and lead the unwary in unpredictable directions. Maps were jealously guarded secrets and Eduard had to memorize the one shown to him as his position didn't merit trusting him with a copy. He had taken time to memorize it and hoped he had remembered the crucial and potentially fatal details. The noise of the old city above didn't penetrate the depths of these caves and Eduard felt his ears ringing in the sudden silence. Eduard knew this part of the tunnel ran north in a straight line two kilometers long from _The Library of the Commons_ to another monument he called _The Synagogue_ – actually _The Palace of the Merchants_ – a modest but pretty four story stone building with Roman proportions. The Merchant Guild met there although war had been bad for business.

"I smell sulfur," Mink Ku had her hand on the back of Eduard. The tunnel had torches spaced a hundred meters apart but it had a looming darkness and she expected the whole space to collapse or suddenly become pitch black.

"Naples," Eduard replied enigmatically. "In my world, that city lay on the sides of a volcano like this city. The gasses from the hot interior of the earth seep up and you can smell it in basements and see it bubble up in the harbor." Eduard kept mental notes on his place as he counted his steps. "I never understood why they built the Fire Nation capitol here on the basalt plains of Mount Kaiten."

"The name of the place where the Fire Lord lives?"

"We should be so lucky." Eduard sighed. "That is an extinct caldera from hundreds of thousands of years ago. It came out of the side of the Mount Kaiten. The real terror lies thirty kilometers to the north – Mount Kaiten – that beautiful mountain covered in snow." Eduard looked both ways down a tunnel that intersected with the one he was following. "It erupted five thousand years ago and lay the deposits we're walking on. That eruption covered this plain with a hundred meters of ash and lava." Eduard saw no stairwell leading to the surface as he looked down the side tunnels and it struck him that they had not walked the full distance to _The Palace of the Merchants_.

Two stairwells on either side of the tunnel led to the surface. They had arrived under_ the Palace of the Merchants_.

"What next." Mink Ku asked.

Eduard put the red metal box on the ground. "The main tunnel bends to the right and the left. We take the left tunnel for another kilometer and we'll arrive at _The Orchestra Palace_."

"Where does the right tunnel go?"

"A small warehouse along the docks." Eduard picked up the box, adjusted his pack and began walking. "In the days of old, the Merchants Guild used it for smuggling." Eduard laughed a little as he turned to the left. "In the day, the old Fire Nation capitol was a rather fun place; like Naples Italy in my world, a city perched near a volcano but full of all kinds of interesting history, merchants, wandering streets, odd little communities and organized crime. Since the War, the people have grown tired and dull behind the eyes."

The tunnel rock changed and grew lighter and a stale breeze blew through the tunnel bring in a rush of hot air. The torches flickered for a moment and cast long hideous shadows on the wall. Steel braces held up the ceiling but a layer of dust had accumulated on the floor. Eduard knew they had headed in the right direction since this rock consisted of light pumice that didn't support the tunnel dug through it so the engineers had to reinforce the roof to fend off the immense weight of the old stone buildings above.

They found themselves faced by an old, delicately carved door of the reddest mahogany. They had arrived at he Orchestra Palace. Eduard tentatively opened the door in case a guard might have lingered to catch wanderers. He found himself in a huge octagon shaped room with orange pink marble tiles. Each of the eight sides of the ten meter in diameter room had a large red wooden door with a lyre carved on it. The room had an ornate cast iron spiral staircase in the center with twisted iron bannisters that joined a rail that ended with dragon heads. Unlike the tunnel, bright gas lights on chandeliers above each door bathed the room in a bright yellow light.

"What do we do now?" Ming ku followed Eduard into the baroque room.

"Each door leads to a tunnel. Some dead end, others come out in parks or under other important buildings." Eduard brushed his hand across the delicate marble and walked past aset of frescoes set into each of the eight walls. Each one depicted a myth of the Fire Nation but he had no real idea what the brightly colored images could all mean. "Compasses don't work but each door lies on the eight cardinal points of the compass. We need to head north which means crossing the room and entering the door opposite us. A set of numbers inset in the floor began with number one – set in black marble at their door and proceeding up to eight. Eduard understood the room as it represented the fundamental eight notes of the musical scale as Fire Nation music worked in much the same way in Western Music. The Fire Nation had its own musical scale based on the white keys of the piano beginning on A – or one – as Eduard knew as the Minor Scale. The Earth Kingdom had two scales. One used eight notes and used the white notes on the piano beginning on C. The Air Nomads had seventy two scales and one that used five notes landed on the same notes as the black notes of the piano. The room gave musicians a lesson in all of this. A pentagon of pairs of harps and numbers laid in green marble with the even or odd character beside each on lay inside the room and represented something called temperament. Eduard knew a piano played with even temperament. The note B Flat and A Sharp were the same pitch. The Fire Nation had a different take and played in both. Orchestras played in Even Temperament in Major keys. In Minor scale pieces the instruments played Odd Temperament - a slightly different note for B Flat and A Sharp lending a rather nice edginess to the music.

The puzzle came from the fact one had to cross the room in even temperament clockwise, odd temperament counterclockwise or the key door would fail to open. The scale followed depended on the door entered and the one used to leave.

"Step exactly where I step," Eduard cautioned. "If we flub this, we have to start over."

"What am I doing?"

"Receiving a music lesson." Eduard smiled weakly. "The Fire Nation once had a high level of culture in architecture and art. The Musicians Guild built this room as their meeting hall where they would discuss their affairs of business."

"You left me alone." Ming Ku announced abruptly.

Eduard thought for a moment. "I...I..." He hesitated. "You chose now to bring this up?"

"I love you."

Eduard stepped forward. "Keep your mind on the task."

"Well I am." Ming Ku said quietly. "You're a beautiful looking man."

"We met once and talked."

"Is that the task?"

Eduard paused. "No...We have to keep from getting killed before we can make the Fire Lord Azula go nuts. Can we concentrate please?" Eduard backed up a few steps. "I lost count."

Ming Ku patted Eduard's back. "What happened between you and Prince Zuko?"

"One..two Nothing romantic."

"He's gay?"

Eduard stopped. "Straight...otherwise he put up with Mai when he couldhave had mild mannered me."

"You're a queer?"

"Yes." Eduard answered. "Can we keep our mind on the task at hand? This is a rather bad time for you to develop a personality."

"Why did you find Zuko attractive

Click!

The door into the tunnel opened.

Eduard pushed Ming Ku though the tunnel. "As I said...this is a bad time for you to develop a personality." He stumbled into the tunnel and the door closed. "Zuko as a lover? He got me to crawl under this stupid city to help overthrow his sister as Fire Lord! What does that say?"

"You liked the Prince of the Fire Nation?"

"Shut up." Eduard said and then backed his remark up with his characteristic politeness. "Please?"

"I am a mere actress." Ming Ku followed Eduard as he walked up the tunnel. "I never had a chance to romance royalty, I mean they told me to wear a wig that made me look like a bald _Air Nomad Avatar_ and I did."  
>"Ming?"<p>

"Yes?"

"As I mentioned before, this is a bad time to develop a personality." Eduard mumbled, "if we die, I don't want to be reminded of Zuko's bad breath as he kissed me."

"So he had your attention?" Ming Ku laughed.

Eduard felt his way along the wall.

"I don't want to die without having had a man."

"Uh?" Eduard stopped in mid stride. "You know I hardly count. I have a bad heart and I cry lots. You'll live to have much better men. What about that buff guy who played Toph?"

"Gay."

Eduard pulled at the handle of a steel door. "Him? What about the bucktoothed guy who played Sokka?"

"He's married to the actress who played Katara."

"This is a disturbing conversation." Eduard pried the door open. "Welcome to the Royal Palace."

"The fat chick?"

"What about her?"

"We have work to do."

"She has the body I wish I had."

"Ming?"

"Uh? yes?" The slim actress answered.

Eduard looked out into the rock tunnel. "I have your body and except for the odd heart failure, a weak bladder...it has served me well." Eduard held out his hand and a flame grew from it. "I've got a nervous disposition and I'm a sissy."

"I knew that."

"I need to pee." Eduard looked down the tunnel. "Whenever I have a bad case of nerves my bladder sends me messages."

"You underestimate yourself." Ming kissed Eduard's cheek. "You're a very sweet man."

* * *

><p>Azula missed Eduard. She had once wished him dead but now <em>she was the Fire Lord <em>and she missed him and his friendship. She had to have him executed and his escape proved he was a traitor but she had a fondness for him. She missed him now more than ever because he had the gift of common sense and the level headed thinking she lacked.

"All that is wonderful in my life has fled, never to return." She cried softly. Eduard had been the rarest of things in her life – a good friend. She missed him so much.

She lay on her red velvet covered dais and hummed the melody from the Elgar Cello Concerto so beloved of Eduard. All the dreams of power had fled. She was the Fire Lord and yet she had never been more deeply unhappy. All those things wonderful in her life had fled never to return.

Azula rose from her comfortable couch and went for a walk in the palace.

"What have I given birth to?" She whispered to herself as she walked past a deferential servant holding a tray with tea. "I had the idea to conquer the Earth Kingdom and my father has gone to carry it out. I will have blood on my hands."

Eduard would have talked her down no doubt. Azula knew he was gay but she loved him all the more for his fussy, sensitive and boy chasing nature. She walked past another servant and didn't even notice as the poor girl bowed and trembled. She had terrorized her servants. She fired the men, had bullied the women but found no joy in any of it.

Eduard had come to her and inspite of his torments – his weak heart and his loss of loved ones – he found joy. She knew this because he served her faithfully and with respect.

She had wondered about Eduard. She had met him at the Western Air Temple and she missed her long talks with him. She had gone to kill her brother and met him. She had her duty and tried to kill him but he had escaped. She had mixed feelings about this. Eduard had been a good friend to her; loyal, a trifle odd but always reliable. She felt the burden of her betrayal of him and as she walked down the palace hallway, she felt grave remorse. She had seen her mother vanish and her best friend Eduard vanish. She had once been able to reassure herself that these things would strengthen the Fire Nation. Now she missed her red haired friend with his odd colored green eyes.

"I wish I had not had him tortured like that." Azula whispered under her breath. She wished she could find some kind of forgiveness for her deeds but it eluded her. She hummed the sad tune as she roamed the palace alone in her night robe. She missed the endless stream of music from Eduard, whether he hummed or used his delicate tenor singing voice or if he played the flute; she missed the way his music filled the palace's empty, dreary, dark and oppressive spaces.

She hummed that sad melody from Elgar's Cello Concerto. The sad sense of autumn, of oncoming bleakness it had matched her mood perfectly.

"You hear that?" Eduard whispered.

"No?' Ming answered as she stood in the hall outside of Azula's flat.

"I could swear I heard that sad melody from the Elgar Cello Concerto. I might be mistaken: I'm very tired." Eduard peered into the rooms that served as Azula's flat. "A bit of wishful thinking perhaps. All things good and beautiful have fled this world, never to return." He patted Ming on the shoulder. "We have work to do."

Azula's apartment was devoid of servants. Azula had become Fire Lord Azula and had some important firings to take care of, and no one guarded her quarters. The palace flat had the same requiem to bad taste the rest of the palace shared. The main room had pink marble wainscoting, a delicate gold and red rug on the floor had shag even a disco fan would find overdone. The walls had some kind of gold inlay dragon motif that signaled that money could buy anything but probably shouldn't.

* * *

><p>"You were a very nice dancer," Ming followed Eduard into the room and spoke softly. "Most guys would have ignored me and danced with Katara's stunt double."<p>

"You looked lonely." Eduard pressed a small button and a door in the wall slid open. He kissed Ming gently on the cheek. "I couldn't give you what you deserved then and I still can't. I'm sorry." Eduard motioned for Ming to follow him into a narrow passageway.

The small passageway led to a space behind a half mirror. Like any good totalitarian regime, the Fire Nation spied as much on itself as it did on its enemies and even the prince and princess had minders to keep an eye on them and assess their loyalty. The palace had a network of passages and hidden rooms for spies to hide and servants to move quickly from one wing of the castle to the other.

Eduard set down the red box and then took a seat. Ming knew something with him was not right since he turned white and fainted. He would have fallen had the room not been small. She tried to help him, but he waved her off.

"I've had a long day." Eduard took off his knapsack and took out a green glass bottle that contained the remarkable tea Katara had used to help his heart cope. He took a swig and winced at the bitter taste. "Give me a moment."

Ming saw the color return to her one eyed friend's face. "You sure? I should get help."

"I have a weak heart," Eduard tapped his chest with the palm of his hand. "A congenital condition but medication makes it better. I'll be up to speed after a few minutes rest."

At that time, Eduard didn't have much time to collect himself. _Sozin's Comet _returned every one hundred years, ninety days, four hours and change. It headed for the moment it would cross the orbital plane of the Earth at a speed of thirty five kilometers an hour. It had the name _Sozin's Comet_ but in reality it was a far flung Earth Crossing asteroid.

No one on the planet planned to debate that little point. What mattered to Fire Lord Ozai was the great power it would impart to his fire benders. What scared the rest of the world was the power it would give their enemy. The Earth Kingdom knew their ancient kingdom could end in the next day.

Eduard didn't know what made _Sozin's Comet_ impart power to fire benders but he had never worked out what imparted the ability he had to use fire bending. He sat down and rested and gave over his mind to these thoughts. When he first made a tongue of flame rush from his hand, he felt like a stone age hunter who had crawled into the cockpit of a jet airline and discovered he could fly without effort.

Ming Ku remained quiet. She feared being captured by Azula and she waited while Eduard recovered his strength.

"Okay," Eduard slowly stood up. "Azula will be back so lets saddle up."

"What do we do?" Ming Ku looked down at the red box.

Eduard opened up the box and slowly unpacked the wooden tripod. He placed a device that looked like a filmstrip projector onto the top of the metal mount on the tripod and tightened it down. Ming picked out the padded bag of glass slides.

"The Fire Lady looks so gentle," Ming held up a square glass slide which had a colored photograph of Lady Ursa. "How could she have raised a monster like Azula?"

Eduard glanced up at the slide with the dim light passing through it. A photographer had taken the picture after long hours of posing and then a painter had painted the glass with enamel. Eduard had never met Lady Ursa. Azula and Zuko had said little about her although he gathered from Zuko that the prince shared a close relationship with her. Everything about her remained shrouded in secrecy. Eduard knew Ozai had banished her (or so he had been told by the less than trustworthy Azula) but for what infraction he never discovered. He finished his task and double checked to make certain the projector sat level and at the proper angle.

"Before we stage our show, we head off to the kitchen." Eduard announced to Ming Ku.

Ming Ku had grave fears about being apprehended and tortured and made them quite clear. "What if a guard finds us?"

"The chances of running into a guard seem slim." Eduard scratched above his missing eye. "Fire Lord Ozai has left with most of his soldiers to stage his invasion of the Earth Kingdom. He stripped the usual retinue of guards for the palace for this purpose. Ozai doesn't have the mind of a great military strategist but he has great arrogance. He could not conceive of the Fire Nation palace falling. If I had to plan security I would have left security at the underground entrances to insure my safety. We passed under the tunnels into the castle unopposed." Eduard motioned for Ming to follow. "He left his incompetent daughter to mind the place. This tells me a great deal."

"Why the kitchen?"

"Azula has fussy tastes," Eduard told Ming. "She has picky eating habits. She won't eat fish, hates pastries with huts in them, demands olives without pits and so on. I know I can trust our palace cooks to help me. I gave them a pension plan, a raise and proper respect. I think we can accomplish much by making her favorite foods unpalatable for her."

"Hello?" A pleasant looking fat man greeted Eduard sitting on a stone in the middle of a trpoical forest clearing.

"Bloody Hell!" Eduard exclaimed. " I died?"

"Perhaps?"

"Did I died the way I always wanted to die?"

"How did you want to die?"

"Cursing God as I missed an easy put on the ninth hole?"

The man looked down. "You don't know who I am."

"Not a bloody clue." Eduard admitted "I had expected my death would be a little less – conscious."

"I see." The old man said patiently. "I am the Buddha and I must reach a decision about you."

"I love those Pearlie Books." Eduard answered. "Could I come back as a Jubilee Park Fairy?"

"We reserve Australia for those who have done spectacularly bad in their life here."

"What did the Australians do that was particularly odious?"

The Buddha adjusted the wool robes as he sat in lotus position. "We had to find some place to put the lawyers."

"Well?" Eduard put his hands behind his back. "So I died."

"I have to reach a decision about you." The Buddha took on a severe look. "When a tree falls in the forest, and no one hears it, does it make a sound?"

"Can we push past the quiz and get to the part where I have to memorize the postal code for Alice Springs or Cairns or Darwin or whatever _cane toad_ infested part of Australia you plan to ship me to?" Eduard said impatiently. "I do know that no one has ever returned from their vacation in the Caribbean to find a large tree has sliced their house in half and crushed the dog and thought: Golly, gee – that must have been super quiet." Eduard turned his back to the Buddha. "I don't have the mind for Eastern mysticism. The people who live in the East have no mind for koans – they build TV sets. Can you please ask me some kind of question I might know the answer to?"

"Have you ever visited the East?"

"Not the TV building parts of it...no." Eduard began walking away. "Does the airport in Hong Kong count?"

"I have reached my decision." The Buddha belched softly.

"I'm French." Eduard turned around. "That may have cursed me in perpetuity."

"You don't appreciate your good fortune."

"I croaked. I have gone to meet my maker. I have drawn the final curtain and gone to sing with the choir invisible. I have taken a dirt nap, I'm worm food. I have given up my breathing rights. I have no need for my health insurance. I have cashed in all my chips at the Casino Eternal. I am an ex - Frenchman " Eduard rasped. "How does this count as good fortune my pot bellied curry eating friend?"

"You had the good fortune to mend your mistakes." Buddha said softly as he raised his hand.

Eduard glared at the old Asian man. "Now what you Nepalese knob! Do you plan to keep me in this malaria infested jungle until I can come up with some kind of wisdom?" Eduard smacked the back of his neck as a mosquito bit into it. "I have no profound wisdom to offer. I never thought deeply upon issues of life, death, the Universe and everything. I figured that some group of astrophysicists would eventually work it all out. Can I go now?"

"Botan is it?" Eduard held onto the sides of the rowboat hoping he didn't do a header in the dark water of the River Styx. "Do you enjoy your work?"

"I find it sad sometimes." The blue haired girl in her pink kimono said. "I find it sad to take handsome young men like you across – sad to see such beauty end."

"I hope _you are _taking me back!" Eduard exclaimed. "Back to the place I love and know best. Back to the land of the French and the home of the surrender monkey? Back to Europe where a country can have two square miles, four rich citizens, no taxes and _still _be a country. I miss it. It might be more pleasant if it had fewer Germans but I like their cars."

"You're returning to the Avatar Realm." Botan looked at Eduard. "I know you are deeply unhappy and I'm truly sorry. In a way I feel sad returning you there knowing you have such a deep hole in your life."

"My world was better in some ways, far worse in others." Edaurd adjusted the patch over his eye. "I miss the music. I have my favorite pieces alone in my mind but no orchestra plays them. A world has its won share of geniuses but of my world, I miss Elgar, Mendelssohn and Bach most of all."

Botan rowed quietly. " did worry that with your weak heart and poor health that I might have to take you into the afterlife as a young man. I had hoped you would have a happy fate and live a long life with many friends."

"Why did I have to meet the Buddha?"

Botan lifted the oars out of the water to rest her arms."We know you don't like God and think little of Jesus. We picked someone you'd get on with. You might have slugged the other guy. We have a few Pagan Gods but Odin only speaks Old Norse while Thor had been known to hit people with his hammer."

"This blows my atheism out of the water."

"We used to have Betrand Russel to meet with atheists." Botan resumed rowing. "He eventually went on to his next life as a green grocer in Glasgow – I think. We have our eye on Richard Dawkins."

The wooden row boat bumped up against the rocky shore. Botan gave Eduard a hug. "Please try and find happiness in this life"

Eduard stumbled out of the boat. "Walk into or out of the light?"

"Most people walk into it but it doesn't matter," Botan sat in the boat and waved at Eduard. "The light functions as more of a piece of the décor. We could have one of those arrow signs like those on electric and gas utility trucks. Just walk in the direction you find best."

Eduard bowed. He slowly walked toward the light with a renewed respect for the researchers at the Japanese television station that had produced _Poltergeist Reports_.

Eduard's vision cleared. He found it surprising that he had not seen a light when he did die. A warning would have given him some time to brace himself.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Ming asked him as she helped hold him steady. "You stumbled and looked lost for a minute."

"Oh?" Eduard oriented himself. "We're near the kitchen?"

"I hear servants working in there."

"Making Azula a Rat Poison and ground glass burger?" Eduard whispered hopefully.

"Pitting cherries." Ming kept her hand on Eduard's back. "A big bowl full." She looked at Eduard in the dim light. "You sure you're alright?"

Eduard walked into the kitchen from the servant hallway and the two servants working on the cherries stared at amazement and then utter shock.

Ming held back in the hallway.

"Rumors of my death were exaggerated." Eduard gave the two servant girls, young women of his age a big hug. "How are you doing?"

"Azula fired half the staff and banished her servants." The shorter of the two servant girls complained. "She tossed my friend in jail for making some kind of mistake brushing her hair."

"Her taller companion, a handsome and elegant woman who had served the palace loyally spoke up. "Azula has lost her mind. She finds conspiracy everywhere and she lives in constant fear she might be betrayed or attacked. She ordered the _Ring Pond_ drained to remove the threat from water benders."

"The turtle ducks will loose their homes." Eduard had given some thought to draining the ring pond around the palace on the grounds that it gave the cute turtle ducks somewhere to swim which was not a good thing in all instances. It also supplied half the city with malarial carrying mosquitoes.

"I can take over for you," Eduard smiled pleasantly. "It's late and you two look exhausted."

"We have to finish pitting these cherries." The tallest servant girl insisted. "Azula will punish us harshly if we leave don't finish."

"I can't give you any details but this will end soon." Eduard said in a comforting voice. "We all must suffer a little more if we're all to be free. Please take a break."

The two girls looked at Eduard and bowed. "What do you have in mind?"

"Azula has begun to suffer from psychosis," Eduard explained. "I can't fight her as a fire bender but I did come know her better than anyone else. If we can weaken her, she may fall."

The servants looked like they lacked confidence.

"What if Fire Lord Ozai returns victorious from his conquests?" The shorter girl asked. "Azula will have the run of the palace and we'll be sent to prison for treason."

* * *

><p>Eduard paced the tile floor listening to his steps. They sounded far too loud to be from someone sneaking into the Fire Nation Palace. "You can escape." Eduard held out his map. "Do what you have to do to serve Azula but if you follow these tunnels, you can flee and be gone before she notices." He handed the shorter servant girl his maps. "You'll find no guards down there and you can vanish in the city."<p>

"How did leaving her unpitted cherries help us?" Ming Ku asked Eduard as they stood in Azula's huge bathroom. "She'll spit out the cherry pits like anyone else.

"We have to use Azula think," Eduard looked around at the bathroom. As bathrooms went, this one would have comfortably housed a family of four, a dog and their two cars in an attached garage. The room echoes. The pink marble bathtub had jets, gold faucets and took up the far side of the huge bathroom. The two way mirror, Eduard had seen from the servant's hidden corridor but from this side, it took up the better part of the short wall. She had two! As if one mirror with a size which would cause the ardent home theater addict to drool was not enough."She hates pits in her cherries. I guess she's scared of choking We had a few cherry trees in the yard and I used to eat a bowl of cherries and spit the pits out wondering if a tree would take root."

"Oh..." Ming held out a bottle of purple crystals. "Potassium permanganate?"

"Ever had ringworm?" Eduard and Ming sorted through the medicine cabinet and made certain to put all the items out of order to further annoy Azula. "A couple of silver pieces at the local chemists. You soak your feet in it if you get foot fungus." Eduard had used the _purple stuff_ in a foot bath for a case of athletes foot brought on by the humid climate and the irritating habit the Royals had of wearing boots all the time.

"What to you hope to find?" Ming held out a small green bottle of aspirin.

"Put a few of the lavender bath crystals in the bottle – it'll drive her nuts." Eduard held out his left hand as he reached for a larger bottle of tablets. "Hold on a minute. Have you ever been told by your doctor you don't get enough camphor? Mothballs!" Eduard held out the bottle like a trophy. "Why not fill the aspirin bottle with mothballs, the bath salt bottle with aspirin and - she has no laxatives."

Ming wondered if she had chosen the right course of action in helping Eduard. She had grown up in the uneventful middle. Her father served as the principle of a small school on the Main Fire Nation island and she had grown up in the capitol – the very part that struck Eduard as looking like Naples. She had a mother who worked as an accountant for a bank. She grew up as an only child in a middle class household. She had gone to school and learned the propaganda and the altered history and never quite accepted it. Her parents lived in a nice home in a nice neighborhood in a nice part of the city. She didn't know of the depredations of the Fire Nation or the miserable lives of the power seeking Fire Nation nobility.

Eduard saw in the boring middle class the future of a real and strong Fire Nation. He valued the Middle Class for their values. He wanted people of reason and enlightened self interest to replace the power hungry or docile nobility.

Ming looked at Eduard. "You know I know nothing about you. You have the oddest accent and you side with the Avatar. You treated me as an equal as equal when all others saw me as a mere actress and incapable of thought."

"I can't speak in front of people without losing my nerve," Eduard cautiously listened for noises at the door. "Mere actress?" He closed the bronze doors of Azula's medicine cabinet and wondered to himself: _Why wouldn't the paranoid princess lock this? _"I believe in the dignity of all humans. We have value because of who were are, not because some twit in the nobility decided that you were less important than him. I believe the Fire Nation will only regain its true place in the world when it embraces the idea of the inherent right of all people and even living things to live and go about their business."

"Peace?"

Edaurd looked at Ming Ku. "All living things have a right to peace."


End file.
